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J^O'^ L^Cyfi cJ^^>^caa^c^ 






LIFE 



OF 



JO SI AH QUINCY. 



BY HIS SON, 



EDMUND QUINCY, 

B-ELI.OW OF THE AMERICAN ACADEJIY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES; MEMBER OF THE 

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIICTV HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, AND OF 

THE niSTOKICAL SOCIETIES OF MASSACHUSETTS 

AND NEW HAMPSHIRE 



:C^ 




SIXTH EDITION. 



BOSTON: 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 




E30Z 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 

K D JI U N D Q U I N C "i' , 

ia the Clerk's Office of the District Court for tlie District of Massachusetts. 



^2.^ 



^ 



PREFACE. 



AT the time of my father's death many of his friends 
expressed a wish that a somewhat extended account 
of his long life, so much of which had been spent in the 
public service, should be prepared for the press. I was 
a little doubtful as to this myself, considering that it 
was more than fifty years since he left the scene of 
national affairs, and nearly twenty since he resigned 
the Presidency of the University, and withdrew finally 
to private life. Having met with well-educated persons 
who had never heard of Fisher Ames, and even with 
gentlemen of the law whose notions of Samuel Dexter 
were nebulous to the last degree, I doubted whether it 
were reasonable to hope that my father's name and 
public services should have escaped the oblivion which 
is so swift to swallow up American reputations. But 
I was willing to be persuaded that it was otherwise 
by his friends, and, still more, by his children. And, 
indeed, the intense interest and active part he had 
taken in the political struggles of the last ten years of 
his life had perhaps made him sufficiently familiar to 
the minds of this third generation of men with whom 
he had lived, to make them not unwilling to learn 



jy PREFACE. 

something of his life before they, or perhaps their fa- 
thers, were born. 

It was the wish of the family that this filial duty 
should be performed by my eldest sister, Eliza Susan 
Quincy, who had long been my father's confidential 
friend and literary adviser, when engaged on any of 
his published works, and whom he had appointed, by 
his will, the custodian of his papers. As she dccUned, 
after mature consideration and some preparation, to 
fulfil our hopes and expectations in this particular, T 
consented to undertake the Life which I now offer to 
the public. Had it not been, however, for the assist- 
ance afforded to me by her careful arrangement of the 
materials confided to her by my father, it is safe to 
say that the task would never have been begun or 
ended. And it is to her watchful supervision and ju- 
dicious criticism that the accuracy of the details of this 
work — the only merit that I claim for it — is largely 



owmg;. 



I thought it indispensable to the proper understand- 
ing of my father's Congressional life, to connect its 
several parts by a tlu^ead of historical narrative, which 
I have endeavored to make as slight as was consistent 
with the object I had in view. It is a portion of his- 
tory less familiar to tliis generation tlian it deserves to 
be, in view of its intrinsic interest and its close con- 
nection with the events of later years. In telling this 
portion of my fatlier's life, I have given ample extracts 
from his speeches, — for his speeches ^vere his life, the 
very breath of his nostrils, at that period of his history. 



PREFACE. V 

I am well aware that such excerpts are very apt to be 
but cursorily glanced at, or even entirely passed over. 
1 have no fear, however, that any one who will take 
the pains to read those selections will think that they 
are too many or too long. 

I have made free use of my father's diaries, and 
of some autobiographical sketches he left behind him ; 
and, as far as they go, I have endeavored to make 
him draw the outline of his own likeness. Where I 
lacked that assistance, my desire has been to tell, as 
simply and briefly as I could, the events and occupa- 
tions of his life, in the hope that the reader might be 
thus enabled to complete for himself the portraiture of 
a character not unworthy of admiration and imitation. 
How well I have succeeded in this endeavor, it is for 
the public to decide. 

Dedham, Massachusetts, 
August 20, 1867. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

1633-1784. 

Page 
Ancestry 1 

CHAPTER II. 

1772-1790. 

Birth and Childhood. — School Days at Andover. — College 
Life. — First Man of his Year. — College Friends. — Thomas 
Boylston Adams and Joseph Dennie 18 



CHAPTER III. 

1790-1798, 

Studies the Law. — Boston Seventy Years since. — Federalists 
AND Democrats. — Despatchful Courtship. — Visits to New 
York and Philadelphia. — Recollections of Washington. — 
Marriage. — Death of his Mother 34 

CHAPTER IV. 

1798-1805, 

"John Adams's War." — Fourth of July Oration. — Defeated 
FOR Congress. — John Quincy Adams supersedes him, and is 

ALSO defeated. — In THE StATE SeNATE. — ATTACKS THE SlAVE 

Ratio of Representation. — Elected to Congress. — Prepara- 
tion FOR Parliamentary Life. — Journey to Washington. — 
Visit to New Haven. — Connecticut Federalists. — Federal- 
ists of New York. — Jacob and Washington Morton. — Life 
AT Washington 58 



Viil CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

1805-1807. 

The Ninth Congress. — State of Affairs — Mr. Quincy.'8 Opin- 
ion OF Mr. Jefferson. — Of the Purchase of Louisiana. — Mr. 
Merry's Reception by Mr. Jefferson. — The Federalists and 
John Randolph. — The Non-Importation Act. — Speech on 
Coast Defence. — Abolition of the Slave-Trade. — Life at 
Washington 88 

CHAPTER VI. 

1807-1808. 

bUMMER Occupations. — Berlin and Milan Decrees. — British 
Orders in Council. — Right of Search. — The Chesapeake 
Outrage. — Extra Session. — Mr. Quincy takes the Lead op 
the Federal Party in the House. — His Pria'ate Life. — The 
Embargo. — John Quincy Adams joins the Democrats. — 
Speech on Empowering the President to suspend the Em- 
bargo, etc 107 



CHAPTER VII. 

1808. 

Society of Washington. — Acquaintances there. — Mr. Erskine 
AND Mr. Rose. — Mr Gardenier and his Duel with Mr. Camp- 
bell. — Discomforts of Congress. — Adjournment. — Summer 
AT Quincy. — The Embargo at Home and Abroad. — President 
Adams on the Causes of the French Revolution. — Return to 
Washington. — Keeps House with Senator Lloyd. — Their 
Way of Life. — First and Second Speeches on Foreign Re- 
lations. — Effect on the Administration Members. — Letters 
from Mr. Adams and Mr. Otis 131 



CHAPTER VIII. 

1808-1809. 

Speech on the Bill for Fifty Thousand Volunteers. — Virulent 
Democratic Attacks. — The Duel at that Time. — Mr. Quin- 
cy's ViEvvs touching it. — Correspondence with Eppes. — The 
Four Frigates. — Speech on the Extra Session. — Renewed 
Virulence. — "Impeachment of Mr. .Fefferson." — Repeal of 
the Embargo and Substitution of Non-Intercourse. — Discom- 
forts OF Washington Life. — His Congressional Friends. — 
South Carolina Correspondence. — The E.xtra Session. — 
President and Mrs. Madison. — Visit to Mount Vernon 166 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER IX. 

1809-1811. 

The Ersktne Arrangement. — Rejected by England. — Federa 
Disappointment and Democratic Chagrin. — Mr. Madison's 
Quarrel with Mk. .Jackson, Mr. Erskine's Successor. — Mr. 
QuiNCY takes his Family to Washington. — Speech on the 
Jackson Imbroglio. — The Admission of Louisiana. — Speech 
UPON it. — Diversities of Secessionism. — Corresi-ondence with 
John Adams 195 

CHAPTER X. 

1811-1812. 

Speech on Place and Patronage. — On Non-Intercourse. — Wash- 
ington Irving. — Twelfth Congress. — Mr. Clay and the War 
Democrats. — Federal Perplexities. — Mr. Quincy votes for 
JIii.iTARY Preparations. — Offends a Portion of his Party. 
— Speech on Maritime Protection 219 

CHAPTER XI. 

1812. 

The John Henry Scandal. — Course of Boston Federalists 
touching it. — The War Democrats. — Clay and Calhoun. — 
The Sixty Days' P^mrakgo. — Despatch of the News to Bos- 
ton. — Its Effect, Mercantile and Political. — The War 
Democrats prevail over Mr. Madison. — War with England 
is declared. — Mr. Quincy declines a Re-election. — His Rea- 
sons for it. — Effect of the War on New England. — Appre- 
hensions AT Quincy. — The Constitution and Guerriere. — 
Hull and Decatur. — Mk.eting of .John Adams and Timothy 
Pickering at Quincy. — John Randolph and his Nephew. — 
His Letters to Mr. Quincy 260 

CHAPTER XII. 

1812-1813. 

Mr. Quincy's last Session. — Speech on the Enlistment of Mi- 
nors. — Fire-eating Tactics. — Speech in Behalf of the Mer- 
chants. — Defines his Position again. — Speech on the Inva- 
sion OF Canada. — Excitement caused by it. — Mr. Clay's 
Diatribe. — Laconic Rejoinder. — Later Relations with Mr. 
Clay. — Speeches on Classifying the Militia and the Prohi- 
bition OF Foreign Seamen. — Feli.x Grundy and his Constitu- 
ents. — Mr. Quincy's Relations with Mr. Randolph. — And 
with Harmanus Bleecker of Albany. — Takes a Final Leave 
OF Congress 273 



K. CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

1813. 

Mr. Quincy's Retirement from Congress. — Oration before the 
Washington Benevolent Society. — In the State Senate. — 
Remonstrance against the War. — Louisiana Resolutions. — 
The Lawkence Resolutions. — Seth Spkague. — Discontents in 
New England. — Matthew Ly'on. — Letters of John Randolph. 307 

CHAPTER XIV. 

1814-1815. 

Removal from Pearl Street. — War Alarms at Quincy. — The 
Hussars. — Letters of Randolph. — Continued Discontents. — 
The Hartford Convention. — Peace of 1815. — Rejoicings in 
Boston. — Political Changes consequent on the Peace. — 
Death of Tudor Randolph. — Last Letter of the Randolph 
Correspondence 344 

CHAPTER XV. 

1813-1823. 

Ten Years of Leisure. — Experimental Farming. — Letter from 
Judge Peters. — I'he Summers at Quincy. — Ex-President 
Adams. — Trumbull's Picture. — President Monroe's Visit. — 
Separation of Maine from Massachusetts — Mr. Quincy 
dropped for the State Senate. — Speech in Faneuil Hall. — 
Returned as Representative. — Convention of 1820. — The 
Missouri Compromise. — Mr. Dowse of Dedham. — Letter from 
John Randolph. — Mr Dowse in Congress. —His Letters. — 
Mk. Quincy Speaker. — Judge of Municipal Court. — His Law 
OF Libel in the Maffitt Case ....... 365 

CHAPTER XVI. 

1823-1828. 

Mk Quincy's Views and Acts as to Poa'erty and Crime. — Nom- 
ination KOK First Mayor of Boston. — Party Complications. — 
Elected the Second Year. — The House of Indu.stry. — Of 
Correction. — Of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders. — 
Improvement in the Police. — The Fire Department. — 
Schools. — The High School for Girls. — Faneuil Hall Market- 
House. — Visits of Lafayette. — Life of Josiah Quincy, Junior. 
— Visitors. — Fourth (^f July Oration. — Death of John 
Adams. — Correspondence. — Randolph's last Letter. — Mr. 
Quincy as a Municipal I\L\gistrate. — Loses his Election. — 
liis Address on leaving the Office 391 



CONTENTS. m 

CHAPTER XVII. 

1S28 - 1833. 

Mk. Quincy elected President of Harvard University. — Thk 
President's House. — Rejioval to Cambridge. — Inauguration. 

— Letters of Judge Story, Mr. Adams, Mr. Webster, General 
Lafayette, and Archbishop Ciieveuus. — Cambridge Society. 

— Changes in DisciruNE and Instruction. — Official and 
Private Intercourse v/ith the Students. — Philosophy of J'ke- 
vENTioN. — The Commons Hall. — New Test of College Rank. — 
I'liE Voluntary System. — The Law School. — Letter from 
Chief Justice Marshall. — Centennial Celebration in Bos- 
ton. — President Quincy's Address. — Letter to Lafayette. 

— Description of Lagrange. — Death ok Lafayette. — Lexxeb 

TO HIS Son. — General Jackson's Doctorate .... 43U 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

1833-1845. 

Sir Augustus Foster. — Correspondence with President Qmscr. 

— College Disturbances in 1834. — Celebration of 1836. — 
Dangerous Situ.\tion of the Library. — Gore Hall built. — 
Gi'.owTH of the Observatory. — Built and equipped mainly 
BY President Quincy's Efforts. — Profitable Purchases of 
Lands. — History of Harvard College. — Letter from Chan- 
cellor Kent. — From James Grahame, the Historian. — Cor- 
respondence AND Friendship with him. — Memoir of Grahame. 

— Republication of his History of the United States. — 
Dealings WITH Mr. Bancroft. — Pre.sident Quincy resigns his 
Office. — Reasons for his Resignation. — Results of his Ad- 
ministration. — Testimony of President Walker. — His Last 

COJIMENCEMENT. — TaKES LeAVE OF CAMBRIDGE. — RETURNS TO 

Boston ............ 466 

CHAPTER XIX. 

1845-1855. 

House on Beacon Hill. — Preparations to meet Old Age. — Di- 
ary. — Memoir of Major Shaw. — Classical Recreations. — 
His Books. — Taste in English Literature. — His Farming. 
-Extracts from Diary.— Conversations with John Quincy 
Adams. — General St. Clair. — Death of Mr. Adams. — French 
Revolution of 1848. — Correspondence with Mr. Broojie. — 
Mr. Heywood, M. P. — The "Plea for Harvard." — Death of 
HIS Wife. — His Character of her. — History of the Boston 
Athen.^um. — Municipal History of Boston. — The Kossutu 
Banquet. — Purchase ok the City Wharf. — Visit of Dk. 



XU CONTENTS. 

IvANii. — Opposes the Union oi^ Boston with Ciiaklestown. — 
His Opinion of LAiioK Citiks. — Mu. Adams's Diaky, and tub 

COLLEGK TuoUliLKS OF 1^34 . . 48fc 



CHAPTEH XX. 

1854-1S63. 

His Interest in Politics. — Auiiohuence of the Fugitive Slaa'E 
Law. — Letteu fkom Washington Iuving. — The Assault on 
Mk. Sumneh. — Lettek to Mk. Hoak. — Addisess at Quincy. — 

LeTTEHS KliOM PliOFESSOU SiLLIM ,VN AND Wu. SUMNEIS. — LetTEK 

to Mus. Wateuston. — Fkemont Campaign. — Whites "Whig 
Policy Analyzed." — Reception of Mis. Sumneu. — Election of 
Wit. Buhlingame. ^ Defeat of Fke.mont. — Rejioval to Pakk 
Street. — Visit from Richakd Coduen. — Letteu fisom Mk. 
Motley. — Fiiom Loud Lyndhuust. — Election of Lincoln. — 
Bp.eakino out of the Rehkllion. — His Faith in the Result. 
— Letteu to Captain Quincy. — Meets with a uisauli.ng Ac- 
cident. — His Personal Hauits. — Beueavements. — Religious 
Opinions. — Adduess to the Union Clul. — Death of Colonel 
Shaw. — Letteu to Phesident Lincoln. — Couuespondence 

WITH PUOFESSOK CaIUNES. — CONCLUSION OF HIS DiAUY 507 

CHAPTEK XXI. 

1864. 

Last Scene of all. — His Ninety-Second Bikthday. — Illness. — 
Letteu to .Mu. Dabney. — Removal to Quincy. — Inteuest in 
PuuLic Affaius. — Death. — Funeual. — Tuibutes to his Mem- 
ouy. — Letteus fuo.m Mu. Cmaules F. Adams and Mu. J. L. 
Motley. — His Peusonal Appearance. — Stouy's Statuij. — 
Busts and Poutuahs. — His Deliueu.vtion of Speech. — His 
Life IN the Passing Dav. — His Paut in the Anti-Slaveuy 
Revolution. — Conclusion 642 



LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 



CHAPTER I. 

1633-1784. 
ANCESTRY. 

Ij^DMUND QUINCY, the first of the name in New England, 
J landed at Boston on the 4th of September, 1633, in com- 
pany with the Rev. John Cotton, Not much is known of him 
or his history previous to his emigration, excepting that he came 
from Achurch in Northamptonshire, and owned some landed 
estate thereabouts. That he was a man of substance may be 
inferred from his bringing six servants with hira ; and that he 
was a man of weight among the founders of the new common- 
wealth appears from his election as a representative of the town 
of Boston in the first General Court ever held in Massachusetts 
Bay. He was also the first named on the committee appointed 
by the town to assess and raise the sura necessary to extinguish 
the title of Mr. Blackstone to the peninsula on which the city 
stands. In company with William Coddington, afterwards Gov- 
ernor of Rhode Island, he bought of Chickatabut, Sachem of 
Mos-wachuset, a tract of land at Mount Wollaston, confirmed to 
them by the town of Boston in March, 1636,* a portion of 
which is yet in the family. Mount Wollaston, from which grew 
the plantation called Braintree, now Quincy, was the scene, a few 
years earlier, of the revels of the graceless Morton and his rab- 
ble rout, — " setting up a May-pole, drinking and dancing about 
it, and frisking about it, like so many fairies, or furies rather." t 

* See "Mr. Coddington's and Mr. Quincy's Grant," Records of the Town of 
Boston, Lib. I. fol. 4. 
t Morton's New England Memorial. 

1 ▲ 



2 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

He changed the sober name of the place to Merry Mount, and 
so scandalized the neighboring colony at Plymouth by these ex- 
cesses, and yet more reasonably by selling arms and ammunition 
to the Indians, that the stalwart Captain Miles Standish was de- 
spatched to deal with him, who arrested him, dispersed his crew, 
and put an end to his reign of misrule. The historian, Motley, 
made this curiously picturesque episode in our infant annals the 
subject of one of his earlier works, a romance entitled "Merry 
Mount," which gave brilliant promise of that glowing power of 
description which illuminates his later pages. The part of the 
grant which embraces Mount Wollaston itself afterwards came 
by inheritance and purchase to President John Quincy Adams, 
and is now the property of his son, Mr. Cliai'les Francis Adams. 
Edmund Quincy died the year after making this purchase, in 
1637, at the age of thirty-three. He left a son Edmund, and a 
daughter Judith. The son lived, in the main, a private life on 
the estate in Braintree. He was a magistrate and a repi'esenta- 
tive of his town in the General Court, and Lieutenant-Colonel 
of the Suffolk Regiment. When the people of Boston deposed 
and imprisoned the Royal Governor, Sir Edmund Andros, who 
had made himself as odious by his tyranny on this side the ocean 
as his master James II. had done on the other, in the spring of 
1689, Edmund Quincy was made one of the Committee of Safe- 
ty which formed the provisional government of the Colony until 
the new charter of William and Mary arrived. Though this 
Colonial revolution may seem but an obscure underplot of the 
great English revolutionary drama, still it was inspired by the 
same love of constitutional freedom, and required quite as much 
readiness to venture life and estate for its establishment on a sure 
foundation, in the Colony as in the mother country, and all who 
ran the risks of the attempt deserve equally the gratitude of 
after generations. Judith Quincy married John Hull, who, when 
Massachusetts Bay assumed the prerogative of coining money, 
was her mint-master, and made a large fortune in the office, be- 
fore Charles II. put a stop to that infringement of his royalties. 
There is a tradition that, when he married his daughter to Sam. 
uel Sewall, afterwards Chief Justice, he gave her for her dowry 



ANCESTRY. 3 

her weight in pine-tree shillings. From this marriage has pprun" 
the eminent family of the Sewalls, which has given three Chief 
Justices to Massachusetts and one to Canada, and has been dis- 
tinguished in every generation by the talents and virtues of its 
members. There is another association with the name of Judith 
Hull, which I fear may not commend it to the blessings of my 
readers, — at least, of such of them as are accustomed to pass 
between Boston and New York by the way of Long Island 
Sound. For John Hull owned lands in the Narragansett country, 
and, in giving Christian names to those savage places, he con- 
ferred that of his wife on the ill-reputed headland, the terror of 
all seasick passengers, ever since known as Point Judith. If the 
good man could have had a prophetic glimpse into futurity, he 
would hardly have sought to perpetuate so beloved a name by 
bestowing it on that pernicious promontory. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Quincy, who was a child when 
brought to New England, died in 1698, aged seventy years, hav- 
ing had two sons, Daniel and Edmund. Daniel died during 
his father's lifetime, leaving an only son, John, who graduated 
at Cambridge in 1708, and was a prominent public man in 
the Colony for near half a century. He was a Councillor, and 
for many years Speaker of the Lower House. He died in 
1767, at the time of the birth of his great-gra'ndson, John Quincy 
Adams, who therefore received the name which he has made 
illustrious. Edmund, the second son, graduated in 1699, and 
was also in the public service almost all his life, as a magisti-ate, 
a Councillor, and one of the Justices of the Supreme Court. He 
was also Colonel of the Suffolk Regiment, at that time a very 
important command, since the County of Suffolk then, and 
long after, included what is now the County of Norfolk, as well 
as the town of Boston. In 1737, the General Court selected 
him as their agent to lay the claims of the Colony before the 
home government, in the matter of the disputed boundary be- 
tween Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire. He died, how- 
ever, very soon after his arrival in London, February 23d, 0. S., 
1737-8, of the small-pox, which he had taken by inoculation. He 
was buried in Bunhill Fields, where a monument was erected to 



4 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

him by the General Court, which also made a grant of a thour-and 
ncres of land in the town of Lenox to his family, in further recog- 
nition of his public services. 

Judge Edmund Quincy had two sons, Edmund and Josiah. 
The first-named, who graduated at Cambridge in 1722, lived a 
private life at Braintree and in Boston. One of his daughters 
married John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of In- 
dependence and afterwards Governor of Massachusetts. Josiah 
was born in 1709, and took his first degree in 1728. He accom- 
panied his father to London in 1737-38, and afterwards visited 
England and the Continent more than once. For some years he 
was engaged in commerce and ship-building in Boston, in partner- 
ship with his brother and his brother-in-law, Edward Jackson. 
A rather singular adventure was the prosperous occasion of his 
withdrawing from business. In 1748 the partners owned a ship 
named the Bethell,* which had been on a voyage to the Mediter- 
ranean. At that time England was engaged in the war with 
France and Spain which the Colonists distinguished as King 
George's War, and the Spanish privateers were the especial 
dread of English commerce. By way of precaution, the Bethell 
bad taken out a letter of marque, and was armed, though six 
of her twenty guns appear to have been of the Quaker persua- 
sion. Not long after issuing from the Straits into the Atlantic, 
she fell in, just at nightfall, with a ship of greatly superior force, 
under Spanish colors. Escape was impossible ; so, instead of at- 
tempting it, she bore down upon the Spaniard, and peremptorily 
summoned her to surrender. The captain, by way of putting as 
good a face upon the matter as possible, made the best display he 
could of lanterns in the rigging, and had all the spare coats and 
hats which the sailors' chests contained picturesquely disposed, so 
as to make the enemy beUeve that his ship was full of men. The 
Spanish captain, after some demur and parley, taking the Bethell 

* The Bethell was named for Slingsby Bethell, an eminent merchant of Lon- 
don, afterwards Lord Mayor, who was the correspondent and agent of the Bos- 
ton firm, and, there is some reason to think, a partner in some sort, at least in 
this adventure. He was the ancestor of the great lawyer, Sir Ricliard Bethell, 
successively Solicitor and Attorney General, and afterwards Chancellor, with the 
title of Lord Westbury. 



ANCESTRY. 6 

for an English sloop-of-vvar, struck his colors, and gave up hia 
ship without firing a gun. His rage and that of his crew, on dis- 
covering the stratagem to which they had fallen victims, was in- 
finite, but unavailing. The gallant captain of the Bethell, Isaac 
Freeman, whose name certainly deserves to be preserved, says, 
in his letter to his owners : " At Daylight we had the last of the 
Prisoners secured, who were ready to hang themselves for sub- 
mitting, when they saw our Strength, having only fourteen Guns, 
besides six wooden ones ; and you may easily imagine we had 
Care and Trouble enough with them till they were landed at 
Fyal." The Jesus Maria and Joseph was a "register ship," bound 
from Havana to Cadiz, with one hundred and ten men and 
twenty-six guns ; while the Bethell had but thirty-seven men and 
fourteen guns. Her cargo " consisted of one hundred and sixty- 
one chests of silver and two of gold, registered," besides cochineal 
and other valuable commodities. The prize was brought safely 
into Boston, duly condemned, and the proceeds distributed. My 
great-aunt, Mrs. Hannah Storer, Mr. Quincy's daughter, who 
died in 1826, at ninety, used to describe the sensation this event 
caused in Boston ; and how the chests of doubloons and dollars 
were escorted through the streets, by sailors armed with pistols 
and cutlasses, to her father's house, at the corner of what is now 
Central Court and Washington Street, where they were deposit- 
ed in the wine-cellar, and guard mounted over them by day and 
night while they remained there. 

Though Mr. Quincy was but about forty years old at this time, 
he soon afterwards retired from business and removed to Brain- 
tree, where lie lived for thirty years the life of a country gentle- 
man, upon his share of the ancestral acres, occupying himself 
with the duties of a county magistrate, and amusing himself with 
field sports. Game of all sorts abounded in those days in the 
woods and along the shore, and marvellous stories have come 
down, by tradition, of his feats with gun and rod. He was Colo- 
nel of the Suffolk Regiment, as his father had been before him ; 
but not otherwise in public life, excepting that he was sent by the 
government of the Province, in 1755, during the Old French 
War, to Pennsylvania as Commissioner to ask the helf of that 



« LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Colony in an attack which Massachusetts Bay had planned 
upon Crown Point. He succeeded in his mission, by the help 
of Doctor Franklin, who relates the transaction at large in his 
Autobiography. * "A most cordial and affectionate friendship," 
to use Dr. Franklin's own words, subsisted between them for the 
next thirty years. Whenever he came to Boston, Dr. Franklin 
always visited Colonel Quincy (as he was usually styled) at 
Braintree, and an intimate correspondence was kept up between 
them as long as the latter lived. It was at the end of one of 
these letters, dated at Passy, September 11, 1783, that Dr. 
Franklin made use of the expression, which has become almost 
as much a proverb in men's mouths as any of Poor Richard's, — 
" May we never see another war ! For, in my opinion, there 
never was a good war or a had peace .' " f 

Colonel Josiah Quincy, by his first marriage, had three sons, 
Edmund, Samuel, and Josiah, and one daughter, Hannah. His 
first wife was Hannah Sturgis, daughter of John Sturgis, one of 
his Majesty's Council, of Yarmouth. • The tradition in the family 
runs, that Judge Edmund Quincy saw this young lady, when on 
circuit, at her father's house, and was so much struck with her 
charms, that he ordered or advised his youngest son to pay his 
addresses to her, without delay, — he himself and his eldest son 
being already matrimonially provided for. The young man duti- 
fully obeyed the paternal behest, and wooed and won her for hia 
bride ; an act of filial piety for which he was rewarded by an 
excellent wife, well-accomplished according to the standai'd of 
female education at that day. Her daughter Hannah we may 
infer, from the way in which she is mentioned in John Adams's 
early diary, to have been not the least of the attractions of her 
father's house in the eyes of the young Braintree lawyer. He 
speaks of her sometimes by her own proper name, and sometimes 
as O., the initial of Olinda, the name which she assumed in cor- 
respondence and intimate society, according to the romantic cus- 
tom of young ladies of that day, of which Mrs. Adams tells us in 
her Letter!^ published by her grandson. They remained friends 
through their long lives, and died within a few weeks of each 

* Sf-iirks's Life and Works of Franklin, L 180. t Ibid., X. 9. 



ANCESTRY. 7 

Other, in 1826. She married, first, Dr. Bela Lincoln (H. C. 
1754), brother of Major-General Benjamin Lincoln, of the Rev- 
olution ; and secondly, Ebenezer Storer (H. C. 1747), for many 
years Treasurer of the College. 

Her eldest brother, Edmund, graduated in 1752, after which he 
became a merchant in Boston. He was in England in 1760, for 
the purpose of establishing mercantile correspondences, and, as 
appears from the Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, of ascertaining 
from the Society of Arts and Commerce what encouragement 
he might expect for the manufacture of potash in the way of a 
premium on its importation into England. Dr. Franklin, in a 
letter to Colonel Quincy, April 8, 1761, says of him, touching 
this matter : " His ingenuous, manly, and generous behavior 
in a transaction here with the Society of Arts gave me great 
pleasure, as it was very much to his reputation." * In this 
operation it appears, from a letter of his own to Thomas Hollis, 
July 25, 1766, that he was successful. In the same letter, 
he tells Mr. Hollis of his endeavors to introduce the silk cul- 
ture into New England. He says : " I doubt not, in the course 
of four or five years, or as soon as the mulberry-trees can be 
brought to be of use, we shall make some figure in that arti- 
cle, for we find by experience that the severity of our winters is 
no detriment to the eggs of the silkworm, wherever deposited." f 
Whether he would have " made some figure " in the rearing of 
silkworms and the culture of silk, had he lived, cannot be known ; 
but I believe his successors in the experiment have made but an 
indifferent one, up to this time. The attempt, however, at that 
period, is curious, as showing the activity and enterprise of the 
New England mind, — then, as now, seeking out new fields and 
forms of industry. Edmund Quincy died at sea in 1768, on his 
return from a voyage for his health to the West Indies. While 
on the subject of his industrial schemes, it may not be amiss to 
mention that his father, Josiah Quincy, engaged in the first manu- 
facture of glass ever set up in America, in company with Joseph 
Palmer, afterwards known as General Palmer, an Englishman, 
who came over in 1744. These glass-works were upon a penin- 

* Sparks's Franklin, VII 22?. | Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, I. 337- 



8 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

sula in Quincy harbor, called Germantown, now the site of the 
Sailors' Snug Harbor. It was called Germantown from the fact 
that the glass-blowers were mainly emigrants from Germany. 
More strictly speaking, they were from Holland ; of which fact 
evidence is yet extant in the remains of the dykes which they 
painfully constructed, on their arrival, to keep out the sea from 
land which had never been overflowed since the general deluge. 
The Revolutionary War put an end to this establishment ; and 
nothing remains of it but the name of the place, and the German 
names of a few families in Quincy, descended from that indus- 
trious colony. 

The second son of Colonel Quincy, Samuel, graduated in 1754, 
and studied the law with Benjamin Pratt, made Chief Justice of 
New York in 1759. He was of about the same standing as John 
Adams, and they were intimate friends until their friendsliip was 
broken up by the Revolution. They were admitted to the bar 
on the same day, November 6th, 1758, and Mr. Adams gives a 
lively account of the ceremony in his diary, some part of which 
reads oddly in the light of his later celebrity. Mr. Quincy was 
to be presented to the court by Jeremiah Gridley, the Attorney- 
General, and the first lawyer in the Province. Mr. Adams had 
also applied to him for the same service, and, thougli they had no 
previous acquaintance with one another, the impression he made 
at the time of this application was so favorable, that Mr. Gridley 
agreed to oblige him. On the important day JMi*. Gridley had 
not come to town, and young Adams says : — 

" I began to grow uneasy, expecting that Quincy would be sworn 
and 1 have no patron, wiien Mr. Gridley made his appearance, and, on 
sight of me, whispered to Mr. Pratt, Dana, Kent, Thacher, about me. 
Mr. Pratt said nobody knew me ! ' Yes,' says Gridley, ' I have tried 
him, and he is a very sensible fellow ! ' At last he rose up and bowed 
to his right hand and said, ' Mr. Quincy,* when Quincy rose up ; then 
he bowed to me, ' Mr. Adams,' when I walked out." 

He then presented the young candidates to the bench with a 
few complimentary remarks, — 

" when," the Diary goes on, " the clerk was ordered to swear us 
after the oath, Mr. Gridley took me by the hand, wished me much joy 



ANCESTRY. 9 

and recommended me to the bar. I shook hands with the bar and re- 
ceived their congratulations, and invited them over to Stone's to drink 
some punch, where most of us resorted, and had a very cheerful chat." * 

The intimacy between the tw^o friends lasted until the heady 
currents of the Revolution swept them asunder. In the Appendix 
to Mr. Charles Francis Adams's Life of his grandfather is a let- 
ter from Mr. Adams to Mr. Quincy, which his grandson prints as 
one of those early papers " which, considering all the circum- 
stances by which Mr. Adams was surrounded, are much the most 
remarkable of his life." Samuel Quincy became eminent in his 
profession, and rose to be Solicitor-General. He sided with the 
Crown at the time of the Revolution, went to England at the 
evacuation of Boston, in March, 1776, and received the appoint- 
ment of Attorney-General of Antigua by way of compensation 
for his exile and his losses. He held this office until his death in 
1789, having never returned to his native land.f 

The youngest son of Colonel Josiah Quincy bore his name, 
and was therefore known to his contemporaries, and takes his 
place in history, as Josiah Quincy, Junior, he having died before 
his father. He was born February 23, 1744, and graduated at 
Harvard College in 1763. Three years later, on taking his Mas- 
ter's degree, he delivered an English oration, the first in our 
academic annals, on the characteristic subject of " Pati'iotism," 
by the rhetorical merits and graceful delivery of which he gained 
great reputation. Colonel Timothy Pickering, who was his class- 
mate, said, fifty years afterwards, " I was not much acquainted 
•with Mr. Quincy in College, but I never shall forget his oration 
on 'Patriotism,' and the tone of voice with which he said, *A 
Patriot ! ' and then proceeded to give the character of one." He 
studied law with Oxenbridge Thacher, one of the principal law- 
yers of that day, and succeeded to his practice at his death, 
which took place about the time he himself was called to the bar. 
He took a high rank at once in his profession, although his atten- 

* Life and Works of John Adams, by his Grandson, Charles F. Adams, 11. 49. 

t There is a biography of Samuel Quincy in the Appendix to Curwen's Jour- 
nal, edited by George A. Ward, and an excellent letter to him from his sister 
Hannah, of whom I have just spoken. 
1* 



10 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

tion lo its demands was continually interrupted by the stormy 
agitation in men's minds and passions which preceded and an- 
nounced the Revolution, and which he actively promoted by his 
writings and public speeches. On the 5th of March, the day 
of " the Boston Massacre," he was selected, together with John 
Adams, by Captain Preston, who gave the word of command to 
the soldiers that fired on the crowd, to conduct his defence and 
that of his men, they having been committed for trial for murder. 
His wife, to whose excellent virtues I shall presently give the 
testimony of her son, was summoned to the hall door, on the 
morning of that fateful day, by the formidable apparition of a 
grim sergeant in King George's livery, asking for Mr. Quincy. 
Her first and natural apprehension was, knowing how odious he 
had made himself to the Provincial authorities, that the errand of 
this redoubtable messenger was to arrest him. She was soon re- 
lieved, however, by finding that his mission was to ask the aid of 
her husband for a prisoner, and not to make him one. 

At that moment of fierce excitement, it demanded personal and 
moral courage to perform this duty. His own father wrote him 
a letter of stern and strong remonstrance against his undertaking 
the defence of " those criminals charged with the murder of their 
fellow-citizens," — exclaiming, with passionate emphasis, " Good 
God ! Is it possible ? I will not believe it ! " Mr. Quincy, in his 
reply, reminded his father of the obligation his professional oath 
laid him under, to give legal counsel and assistance to men ac- 
cused of a crime, but not proved to be guilty of it ; adding : " I 
dare affirm that you and this whole people will one day rejoice 
that I became an advocate for the aforesaid criminals, charged 
with the murder of our fellow-citizens. 1 never harbored the ex- 
pectation, nor any great desire, that all men should speak well 
of me. To inquire my duty and to do it, is my aim." * He did 
his duty, and his prophecy soon came to pass. There is no more 
honorable passage in the history of New England than the one 
which records the trial and acquittal of Captain Preston and his 
men, in the midst of the passionate excitements of that time, by a 
jury of the town maddened to rage but a few months before by 

* Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Junior, by his Son, pp. 34-36. 



ANCESTRY. 11 

the blood of her citizens shed in her streets. At the time of 
taking so prominent a part in this trial, which Mr. Adams well 
said was " as important a cause as was ever tried in any court or 
country in the world," Mr. Quincy was but twenty-six years old. 
Notwithstanding his youth, he was taken into the counsels of the 
elder patriots, and his fervid eloquence in the popular meetings, 
and his ardent appeals through the press, were of potent effect in 
rousing the general mind to resist the arbitrary acts of the British 
ministry. He was one of the first that said, in plain terms, that 
an appeal to arms was inevitable, and a separation from the 
mother country the only security for the future. In 1774 he 
went to England, partly for his health, which had suffered much 
from his intense professional and political activity, but chiefly as a 
confidential agent of the patriotic party to consult and advise with 
the friends of America there. His presence in London, coming 
as he did at that most critical moment, excited the notice of the 
ministerial party, as well as of the opposition. The Earl of Hills- 
borough denounced him, together with Doctor Franklin, in the 
House of Lords, " as men walking the streets of London who 
ought to be in Newgate or at Tyburn." He had interviews, by 
their own invitation, with Lord North and Lord Dartmouth, and 
was received and treated in the kindest and most confidential 
manner by Doctor Franklin, Lord Shelburne, Colonel Barr^, 
Governor Pownall, and many others of the leading men in oppo- 
sition at that time. The precise results of his communications 
with the English Whigs can never be known. They were im- 
portant enough, however, to make his English friends urgent for 
his immediate return to America, because he could give informa- 
tion viva voce which could not safely be committed to writing. 
His incessant devotion to his work undid all the good which the 
change of air and the varieties of travel had seemed to promise 
at first. Doctor Franklin says of him, in a letter to James Bow- 
doin, February 25, 1775 : " It is a thousand pities his strength 
of body is not equal to his strength of mind. His zeal for the 
public, like that of David for God's house, will, I fear, eat him 
up." His health had failed seriously during the latter months 
of his residence in England, and his physician, Dr. Fothergill, 



12 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

strongly advised against his undertaking a winter voyage, assur- 
ing him that the Bristol waters and the summer season would re- 
store him to perfect health. His sense of public duty, however, 
overbore all personal considerations, and he set sail on the 16th 
of March, 1775, and died off Gloucester, Massachusetts, on the 
26th of April. In his last hours, he repeated again and again 
his heart's desire for one hour with Samuel Adams or Joseph 
Warren, when he should die content. The citizens of Gloucester 
buried him with all honor in their graveyard. The next year, 
when the raising of the siege of Boston opened the communica- 
tion with Braintree, he was removed thither and placed in a 
vault, built by his direction for himself and his wife, in the bury- 
ing-ground there, not far from the family tomb. His contem- 
poraries always spoke of his gift of eloquence as something never 
to be forgotten, and as of a higher strain than that of the other 
famous orators those times called forth. His voice is described 
as combining strength, sweetness, and flexibility in an extraordi- 
nary manner, and old citizens have told me tiiat they could hear 
him at the head of State Street when he was speaking in the Old 
South Church. John Adams speaks of him " as aptly called the 
Boston Cicero, the great orator of the body meetings." In a 
letter to his father, dated Philadelphia, 29th July, 1775, Mr. 
Adams says : — 

" We jointly lament the loss of a Quincy and a Warren ; two char- 
acters as great, in proportion to their age, as any that I have ever 
known in America. Our country mourns the loss of both, and sin- 
cerely sympathizes with the mother of the one and the father of the 
other. They were both my intimate friends, with whom I lived and 
conversed with pleasure and advantage. I was animated by them in 
the painful, dangerous course of opposition to the oppressions brought 
upon our country, and the loss of them has wounded me too deeply to 
be easily healed. Dulce el decorum est pro patria rnori. The ways of 
Heaven are dark and intricate, but you may remember the words 
which, many years ago, you and I fondly admired, and which, upon 
many occasions, I have found advantage in recollecting, — 
' Why should I grieve, when grieving I must bear, 
And take with guilt what guiltless I might share ■? ' " * 

* Life and Works of John Adams, Vol. IX. p. 360. 



ANCESTRY. 13 

Josiah Quincy, Junior, was barely thirty-one years of age 
when he thus died, as truly perhaps in the cause of his country 
as his friend Warren, who fell, less than two months afterwards, 
on Bunker Hill. Their names have been commonly and not un- 
justly associated, together with that of James Otis, who had been 
already removed from active life by mental disease, as those of 
men to whom the Revolution was largely owing, though they 
were not permitted to assist in its progress, or to witness its 
triumph. 

Hit father, Colonel Qoincy, lived on at Braintree during the 
whole of the war. The estate bounds on the ocean, and was in 
danger of boat attacks from the British fleet which commanded 
the harbor during the siege of Boston. He remained throughout 
stoutly at his post, though the ladies of his fomily, at times of 
special danger, would take refuge with Mrs. Adams in the mod- 
est farm-house at the foot of Penn's Hill where Mr. Adams was 
born. The following extracts from some of his letters to his 
viaughter-in-law, I\Irs. Josiah Quincy, Junior, then at Norwich, 
in Connecticut, describe the alarms to which the family was ex- 
posed, and recount some of the gossiping rumors by which they 
were occasionally beguiled. 

" It is now upwards of three months since you left us, and scarcely a 
week has passed without our being alarmed from the land or water. 
Great part of our valuable effects are removed. For, although we have 
five companies stationed near us, yet the shells thrown from the float- 
ing batteries and the flat-bottomed boats, which row with twenty oars, 
carry fifty men each, and are defended with cannon and swivels, 
keep us under perpetual apprehension of being attacked whenever we 
shall become an object of suflicient magnitude to excite the attention 
of our enemies. Our circumstances are truly melancholy, and grow 
rather worse than better 

" On the other hand, if we may credit the unanimous report of 
those who have lately been permitted to come out of Boston, the 
King's troops, and many of their ofiicers, are sickly and greatly dis- 
couraged. So much so, that a fortnight since, when orders were given 
to strike their tents, as soon as they understood they were to march 
over the Neck, they refused to proceed, and immediately pitched their 
tents again 

" Lieutenant-Col^nel Pitkin, who is posted for the defence of Squan 



14 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

turn, informed me last evening that the mate of a vessel who was 
seized and carried to Boston overheard an officer say to his friend, 
that General Gage had positive orders to attack the rebels at all haz- 
ards. But upon acquainting his officers, they unanimously refused to 
go, because it would be certain death to them, as we were so strongly 
intrenched. And that they had rather give up their commissions than 
hazard their lives at so great a disadvantage." 

During the siege of Boston, Colonel Quincy conceived a 
scheme for blockading the port by means of fortifications thrown 
up at proper points on the islands commanding the ship-channels, 
so as to compel the surrender of the whole British force. This 
plan he communicated to Dr. Franklin, who dined with him in 
company with James Bowdoin, Professor John Winthrop, and the 
Reverend Doctor Samuel Cooper, in October, 1775, at the time 
of the visit of the Commission of the Continental Congress to the 
camp at Cambridge. Doctor Franklin advised him to impart his 
scheme to General Washington, which he did, offering his person- 
al services and whatever assistance his own perfect knowledge of 
the harbor, the islands, and the channels could lend to the accom- 
plishment of the design. General Washington, in replying to this 
letter, November 4, 1775,* admits the importance of the plan, 
were it possible to carry it out. "We are," he says, "in a manner 
destitute of cannon, and compelled to keep the little powder we 
have for the use of the musketry. The knowledge of this fact is 
an unanswerable argument against every plan, and may serve to 
account for my not having viewed the several spots which have 
been so advantageously spoken of. I am not without intentions 
of making them a visit, and shall certainly do myself the honor 
of calling upon you." 

On the 10th of October, 1775, Colonel Quincy had the satis- 
faction of seeing, from an upper window. Governor Gage sail for 
England with a fair wind, — of which fact he made a record with 
his ring on one of the panes of glass, yet extant. After an anx 
ious winter, he had the yet higher pleasure of seeing the whole 
British fleet under sail on its final departure, on the 20th of 
March, 1776. For the three days that the ships remained in the 

* Sparks's Life and Writings of Washington, Vol. IIL p. 141. 



ANCESTRY. 15 

harbor, after the evacuation of Boston on the 17th, he and his 
family had been under reasonable apprehensions of foraging at- 
tacks, from which they were thus happily relieved. The follow- 
ing letter to General Washington, written the day after, gives a 
lively description of the scene as it passed before his eyes. 

Colonel Quincy to General Washington. 

" Braintree, March 21, 1778. 

" . . . . Nothing less than an inveterate nervous headache has pre- 
vented my paying in person those compliments of congratulation 
which are due to you from every friend to liberty and the rights of 
mankind, upon your triumphant, and almost bloodless victory, in for- 
cing the British array and navy to a precipitate flight from the capital 
of this Colony. A grateful heart now dictates them to a trembling 

hand, in humble confidence of your favorable reception Since 

the ships and troops fell down below, we have been apprehensive of an 
attack from their boats, in pursuit of live stock ; but yesterday, in the 
afternoon we were happily relieved, by the appearance of a number of 
whale-boats, stretching across our bay, under the command (as I have 
since learned) of the brave Lieutenant-Colonel Tupper, who in the 
forenoon had been cannonading the ships with one or more field-pieces, 
from the east head of Thompson's Island, and I suppose last night can- 
nonaded them from the same place, or from Spectacle Island. This 
judicious manoeuvre had its genuine effect; for, this morning, the Ad- 
miral and all the rest of the ships, except one of the line, came to 
sail, and fell down to Nantasket Road, where a countless number is 
now collected. In revenge for their burning the castle last night, 
were we provided with a sufficient number of fire-ships and fire-rafts, 
covered by the smoke of the cannon from a few row galleys, this night 
might exhibit the most glorious conflagration that ever was seen upon 
the watery element, and the probable consequence of it, a period to 
the present war ; otherwise, humanity revolts at the destruction of so 
great a number even of our enemies. If my wishes must not be grati- 
fied, either in a visit to or from your Excellency, the best I can form 
will constantly attend you, while memory and reflection are continued 
to your Excellency's 

" Faithful and obed't serv't, 

" JosiAH Quincy." 
The British fleet remained a few days longer in Nantasket 
Roads, still within sight of the house at Braintree. Colonel 



16 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Quincy kept up a sharp lookout upon its motions, and reported 
thera to General Washington, by his request, conveyed in an 
immediate answer to the foregoing letter, forwarded by a special 
messenger, a son of Major-General Ward. To this Colonel 
Quincy replied, March 25, in a long letter, giving minute partic- 
ulars of the signals and motions of the fleet. 

" . , . . Agreeable to your Excellency's desire, as fast as I can find 
trustworthy persons I shall give them directions to make diligent search 
after such characters as you have described, and, upon good ground 
of suspicion, to apprehend and carry them to head-quarters, or bring 

them to me for further examination as may be most convenient 

I expected Mr. Ward would return with Colonel Tupper, and have 
dined with me ; from them I hoped to have gained further intelligence, 
but am disappointed. I hear the Colonel is preparing a formidable fire- 
raft, which I wish may efiectually operate, but fear a single one will 
avail little. Your Excellency's tender concern for the restoration of 
my health (which, thanks to the Father of Mercies, is much mended) 
lays me under fresh obligation to subscribe myself, with cordial grati- 
tude and esteem. 

" Your Excellency's obliged and faithful, humble servant 

" P. S. 7 o'clock. Mr. Ward and Colonel Tupper are just arrived. 
They are of opinion that the ships which sailed to-day carried off all 
the Tories, and are bound with them to Lewlsburgh." 

The postscript then brings the account of the signalling and 
manoeuvres of the fleet in the minutest detail down to the latest 
possible moment. Letters continued to pass occasionally between 
Colonel Quincy and General Washington during the war. The 
last letter presei'ved bears date, Braintree, November 27, 1780 : — 

" I am happy to hear by my worthy friend. Dr. Crosby, that 
my last letter to your Excellency, with the papers enclosed, was not 
only favorably received, but revived the remembrance of one whom 
you are so good as to rank among the number of your friends. Would 
to God my abilities were equal to my Inclinations, for then I would 
endeavor to render myself worthy of that honor by some eminent pub- 
lic services In defence of my injured country. But, alas ! threescore 
years and ten are past with me ! " 

He then enlarges on the mischiefs of the paper currency of the 
time, in a vein of indignant argument, perhaps not entirely inap- 
plicable to a later period of our history. He affirms, — 



ANCESTRY. 17 

" that there never was a paper pound, a paper dollar, or a paper 
promise of any kind, that ever yet obtained a general currency bujt 

by force or fraud ; generally, by both Fictitious wealth that 

represents nothing but Taxes, to be made a medium of trade, or meas- 
ure of commerce, an adequate reward for public services, and an equiv- 
alent for specie borrowed either on public or private contract, before 
such fictitious wealth had an existence, is certainly going out of the 
road of Truth and Justice ! " 

Such were the old-fashioned notions of a retired man of the 
world of the old school, as he watched the moving scene of 
things through the loopholes of his retreat, ninety years ago ! 

It must have been with feelings in which private sorrow strug- 
gled with public joy, that the stout-hearted old man saw the 
]iritish fleet drop down the harbor; for it bore away, never to 
return, his only surviving son, Solicitor-General Samuel Quincy, 
who, as I have ah'eady related, remained loyal to the crown. 
Such partings were common griefs then, as ever in times of civil 
war, — the bitterest, perhaps, that wait upon that crudest of ca- 
lamities. The war now rolled away to the southward, and the 
dangers and annoyances attendant upon its near neighborhood 
ceased. Colonel Quincy had his full share of the losses and anx- 
ieties growing out of the disturbance of public and private affairs 
caused by the war ; but he survived till after the peace of 1783, 
and thus lived to see his country received into the family of na- 
tions. He died on the 3d of March, 1784. His passion for field- 
sports remained in full force to the end. Indeed, he may be 
said to have died a martyr to it ; for his death was occasioned 
by exposure to the winter's cold, sitting upon a cake of ice, watch- 
ing for wild ducks, when he was in his seventy-fifth year. His 
friend, John Adams, described him as a man of graceful and pol- 
ished manners, and distinguished for the elegance of his dress 
and the completeness of his equipage and appointments. IL3 
was fond of books, too, as well as of his gun ; and his private 
letters, and some political essays he left behind him, show a culti- 
vated taste, and a familiarity with English literature and also 
with the classic authors, his acquaintance with whom he seems 
to have kept up to the last. 



18 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 



CHAPTER II. 

1772-1790. 

Birth and Childhood. — School Days at Andover. — College Life. 
— First Man of his Year. — College Friends. — Thomas Boylston 
Adams and Joseph Dennie. 

JOSIAH QUINCY was born in Boston, on the 4th of Feb- 
ruary, 1772, in a house the walls of which are still stand- 
ing, but masked by a new brick front, in the part of Washington 
Street then known as Marlborough Street. At that time it was 
the sixth house from Milk Street, and stood not far from the 
Old Province House, the scene of the Provincial state of the 
royal Governors for more than a century, and of Hawthorne's de- 
lightful legends of the same, but on the opposite side of the way. 
The bulk of the population lived then at the " North End," or 
that part of the town lying north of Queen Street, now Court 
Street. In the newer part the houses stood well apart, many 
with court-yards before them, shaded by ancient elms, and with 
gardens full of fruit-trees and flowers behind them. The house 
in which Josiah Quincy, Junior, lived when his son was born un- 
to him was a modest one of this description, suitable to the 
means and prospects of a young lawyer already well established 
in business, and with a still rising reputation. But the shadows 
of public and private calamity were already beginning to steal 
over that happy home when it was thus made happier by the 
birth of a son. The town of Boston was occupied by what its 
inhabitants regarded as an enemy's garrison. The evils of the 
present and the uncertainties of the future bore heavily upon 
their prosperity. The fierce passions which were so soon to 
break out into revolutionary violence had already begun to sepa- 
rate families, to divide friends, and to break up society. There 
seemed to be no remedy for the oppressions under which they 
Buffered but an appeal to the sword and the chances of battle at 



BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD. 19 

feai ful odds. It was plain to alj sagacious watchers of the signs 
of the times, that the storm of civil war was gathering fast; and 
it was sure to burst first of all over Boston. It was a time of 
stern agitations and profound anxieties. In these emotions Mr. 
Quincy and his wife shared deeply and passionately. But a pri- 
vate and particular sorrow mingled with their public griefs. His 
professional labors and political excitements had begun to tell on 
a constitution that was never robust. He had been obliged in 
1773 to seek for health under the warmer skies of Carolina; but 
with only a temporary relief. And the next year, as I have al- 
ready related, he left his home, never to see it again, on a visit to 
England, undertaken partly with this same object, but chiefly in 
the hope of doing his country some service. Thus the infancy 
of the long life we are about to enter upon passed away in a 
home ennobled by devotion to high and unselfish purposes, chas- 
tened by the anxieties of domestic love, and consecrated by the 
tears of a returnless parting. 

Josiah Quincy was not quite three years old when his fiither 
went away to die. His mother, however, was a woman of good 
natural parts, sound judgment, and great force of character, 
which fitted her admirably to make good to him, in childhood and 
youth, the want of the watchful guardianship of a father. She 
was so scrupulously careful lest the passionate fondness of a 
young widow for her only son should overflow in a hurtful indul- 
gence, that she even refrained, as he used to tell, from the caresses 
and endearments which young mothers delight to lavish upon 
their children. This self-command was attended by no harshness 
or severity of manners. Her maternal tenderness was the guid- 
ing principle of her life, and wisely directed her whole conduct 
towards her son, who returned it with more than filial afiection. 
He attributed the excellent health which he had during his long 
life to his good early training, and the correct physical habits he 
acquired under his mother's tuition. Some of her hygienic prac- 
tices might not be now received with universal acceptance, not- 
withstanding the success which attended them in this particular 
case, either because, or in spite, of them. Locke was the great 
authority at that time on all subjects which he touched, and 



20 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

in conformity with some suggestion of his, as my father sup- 
posed, Mrs. Quincy caused her son, when not more than three 
years old, to be taken from his warm bed, in winter as well as 
summer, and carried down to a cellar-kitchen, and there dipped 
three times in a tub of water cold from the pump. She also 
brought him up in utter indiflference to wet feet, — usually the 
terror of anxious mammas, — in which he used to say that he 
sat more than half the time during his boyhood, and without suf- 
fering any ill consequences. This practice, also, he conceived to 
have been in obedience to some suggestion of the bachelor philos- 
opher. 

Soon after the departure of his father for England, it grew 
more and more manifest that war was close at hand. The Brit- 
ish troops, under Governor Gage, were shut up in Boston, while 
those of the Colonies were rallying to the inevitable conflict. 
The wealthier inhabitants of the town withdrew themselves, as 
they had opportunity, from the impending siege to distant places 
of safety. Among these, William Phillips, the father of Mrs. 
Quincy, had provided a city of refuge for himself and his family 
at Norwich in Connecticut. He was a merchant of the first em- 
inence, and had acquired a fortune vast for those days, and large 
even for these. Notwithstanding the stake he had at risk, he 
had been a firm and unflinching Whig from the beginning of the 
disputes, and did not now shrink from the chances of civil war, 
when most of the wealthier colonists clung to the protection of 
the mother country. In the month of April, about the time of 
the battle of Lexington, he removed his family, including Mrs. 
Quincy and her son, to Norwich. At first Governor Gage per- 
mitted the inhabitants to leave without objection ; but afterwards 
he forbade it, at the instance of the Tories in the town, who hoped 
that the presence of the families and friends of the besiegers 
might deter them from bombarding it. The very earliest recol- 
lection of my father was connected with this domestic event, 
which he thus relates : — 

" The tradition in my family was, that my grandfather's carriage was 
the last which, at this moment of his decision, Gage permitted to leave 
the town. It was my lot to be with my mother and her two sisters in 



BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD. 21 

that carriage. The following fact probably impressed my childish 
fancy, and was the occasion of my remembering it. The small-pox 
■was then in Boston, and was at that day the terror of the country. 
At the line which separates Boston and Roxbury there were troops 
stationed, and a sentry-box on the east side of the street erected. 
At this point the carriage was stopped, all its inmates made to de- 
scend and entei the sentry-box successively. On each side of the 
box was a small platform, round which each of the inmates was com- 
pelled to walk, and remain until our clothes were thoroughly fumigated 
with the fumes of brimstone cast upon a body of coals in the centre of 
the box. This operation was required to prevent infection." 

Very soon after the establishment of the family at Norwich, 
Mrs. Quincy heard of the arrival of her husband at Glouceater. 
She set out at once to meet him, and had reached the house of 
the Reverend Doctor Gordon, the first historian of the Revolu- 
tion, then minister of Jamaica Plains, before she heard of his 
death. She proceeded immediately to Braintree to share her 
grief with the sorrowing household there. On arriving, she found 
the family scattered. An alarm of a boat attack had caused the 
ladies to take refuge with Mrs. Adams at the foot of Penn's Hill, 
whither Mi-s. Quincy went without delay, and received all the 
consolation and support that sympathy, affection, and friendship 
could afford. She soon returned to her fatherless son at Norwich, 
where they remained together until after the evacuation of Bos- 
ton. Then Mr. Phillips removed his family, first to Jamaica 
Plains, to the house now occupied by Mr. David S. Greenough, 
and thence back to Boston. 

" Of this part of my life," says my father, " I have few and very ob- 
scure recollection!!. All I remember is, that during my childhood I 
imbibed the patriotism of the period, was active against the British, 
and with my little whip, and astride my grandfather's cane, I performed 
prodigies of valor, and more than once came to my mother's knees de- 
claring that 1 had driven the British out of Boston." 

From the time of the flight to Norwich until he was sent away 
to school, his mother and himself made a part of the family of his 
grandfather. This was made necessary by the unsettled state of 
the times. It was not advisable to settle his father's estate at the 
usual time, because the debts would have been paid in (he depre- 



22 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ciated paper money of the period. Consequently, until his own 
property could be advantageously realized, which was not until 
after the peace of 1783, he was dependent on his grandfather for 
support. In his extreme old age he wrote as follows concerning 
this part of his childhood : — 

" My mother imbibed, as was usual with the women of the period, 
the spirit of the times. Patriotism was not then a profession, but an 
enero-etic principle beating in the heart and active in the life. The 
death of my father, under circumstances now the subject of history, 
had overwhelmed her with grief She viewed him as a victim in the 
cause of freedom, and cultivated bis memory with veneration, regard- 
ing him as a martyr, falling, as did his friend Warren, in the defence 
of the liberties of his country. These circumstances gave a pathos and 
vehemence to her gi'ief, which, after the first violence of passion had 
subsided, sought consolation in earnest and solicitous fulfilment of duty 
to the representative of his memory and of their mutual affections. 
Love and reverence for the memory of his father was early impressed 
on the mind of her son, and worn into his heart by her sadness and tears. 
She cultivated the memory of my father in my heart and affections, 
even in my earliest childhood, by reading to me passages from the 
poets, and obliging me to learn by heart and repeat such as were best 
adapted to her own circumstances and feelings. Among others, the 
whole leave-taking of Hector and Andromache, in the sixth book of 
Pope's Homer, was one of her favorite lessons, which she made me learn 
and frequently rejieat. Her imagination, pi'obably, found consolation 
in the repetition of lines which brought to mind and seemed to typify 
her own great bereavement. 

' And thiak'st tliou not how wretched we shall be, — 
A widow I, a helpless orphan he ? ' 
These lines, and the whole tenor of Andromache's address and cir- 
cumstances, she identified with her own suflerings, which seemed re- 
lieved by the tears my repetition of them drew from her. These 
extracts, and others from prose-writers, were my frequent exercise, so 
that during this period of my childhood I was invariably brought for- 
ward at the family meetings to amuse the company with my boyish 
oratory. What other effect these exercises may have had on my char- 
acter, besides deepening my regard for my father's memory, I know 
not ; but they certtanly increased my powers of memory and elocution, 
so that during my subsequent course at the Academy I was always 
brought forward among the best speakers." 



SCHOOL DAYS AT ANDOVER. 23 

He hud scarcely completed his sixth year when Mrs. Quincy 
parted with her son for twelve years, having his society only at 
vacation-times, until after he had taken his degree. The Phillips 
Academy at Andover had just been founded, mainly by the con- 
tributions of his grandfather and other members of the Phillips 
family ; and it was thought expedient that the founders should 
show their confidence in the school by sending their children and 
grandchildren to it. " It was a sacrifice," my father says, " of 
both the feelings and the judgment of my mother to an incumbent 
necessity, to which she yielded, as I have heard my aunts, her 
sisters, say, not without an abundance of tears." For there was 
this further reason for the separation. His grandfather's house 
was, of necessity, the home for the time of both mother and son. 
" Mr. Phillips," to use my father's own words, " was advanced in 
life, of a stern and peremptory temperament. I was noisy, heed- 
less, and troublesome, and it was for his interest as well as for 
mine that we should be separated." To Andover, then, he went, 
twenty-two miles away ; a great distance in those days before 
steam, and even before stage-coaches. And at six years old he 
took his seat on the lowest form by. the side of a man nearly 
thirty years of age, and they began their Cheever's Accidence 
together. 

This mature schoolfellow, Cutts by name, had been a surgeon 
in the Continental army, who, having scrambled into as much 
surgical skill as was then thought sufficient for that position 
without any early advantages of education, was made so sensible 
of his deficiencies, through associating with the cultivated men he 
was thrown among in the army, that he resolved to supply them 
as soon as he had an opportunity. Resigning his commission, he 
came to Andover Academy, and went regularly to school for two 
years, to make up in some degree his classical shortcomings. 
Out of school, of course, he associated on equal terms with the 
Preceptor and the other gentlemen of the town. He was a man 
of wit and talent, and the two ill-mated form-fellows were friends 
in later years. Various romantic stoi'ies are told of him, of which 
this is one. During his military service he had won the heart 
of the daughter of a rich Virginia planter, who would not consent 



24 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

that her hand should go with it to the penniless young surgeon. 
His scholastic training as well as his military career being ended, 
Dr. Cutts, after various adventures, went to Europe, where he 
lived for many years, nobody knew how. After long years a 
letter from the lady of his youthful love found him out, which 
told him that her father, and I think her husband, and vvliatever 
other obstacles had hindered the course of their true love from 
running smooth, were now out of the way, and that, if he retained 
his old affection for her, and chose to claim her early promise, she 
was ready to fulfil it. On this hint he hastened home, married 
his early love, and spent the rest of his life at ease, in the enjoy- 
ment, as I suppose, of the paradise for which the Irish patriot, 
Mitchell, sighed in vain, — "a good plantation, well stocked with 
fat, healthy negroes." All this I remember my father telling us 
at breakfast, many years ago, on reading in the new-paper the 
death of his old schoolfellow, somewhere near Alexandiia, at a 
good old age. 

The Phillips Academy was then under the mastersliip of the 
Rev. Eliphalet Pearson, LL. D., afterwards Hancock Professor 
of Oriental Languages at Cambridge, and subsequently' Professor 
of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover, in 
the establishment of which he had taken an active part. He was 
a good classical scholar and a lover of learning, but of a stern 
and severe temper. He had no gift for smoothing the thorny 
paths of knowledge, and making tiiem paths of pleasantness. 
The following is his pupil's account of his own entrance upon 
thera : — 

" The discipline of the Academy was severe, and to a child, as I was, 
disheartening. The Preceptor was distant and haughty in his manners. 
I have no recollection of his ever having shown any consideration for 
my childhood. Fear was the only impression I received from his treat- 
ment of myself and others. I was put at once into the first book of 
Cheever's Accidence, and obliged, with the rest of my classmates, to 
get by heart passages of a book which I could not, from my years, 
possibly understand. My memory was good, and I had been early ini- 
tiated, by being drilled in the Assembly's Catechism, into the pratitice 
of repeating readily words the meaning of which I could not by any 



SCHOOL DAYS AT AITDOVER. 25 

possibility conceive. I cannot imagine a more discouraging course of 
education than that to -which I was subjected. 

" The truth was, I was an incorrigible lover of sports of every kind. 
My heart was in ball and marbles. I needed and loved perpetual ac- 
tivity of body, and with these dispositions I was compelled to sit with 
four other boys on the same hard bench, daily, four hours in the morn- 
ing and four in the afternoon, and study lessons which I could not 
understand. Severe as was my fate, the elasticity of my mind cast 
off all recollection of it as soon as school hours were over, and I do not 
recollect, nor believe, that I ever made any complaint to my mother or 
any one else. 

" The chief variety in my studies was that afforded by reading les- 
sons in the Bible, and in getting by heart Dr. Watts's Hymns for Chil- 
dren. My memory, though ready, was not tenacious, and the rule 
being that there should be no advance until the first book was con- 
quered, I was kept in Cheever's Accidence I know not how long. All 
I know is, I must have gone over it twenty times before mastering it. 
I had been about four years tormented with studies not suited to my 
years before my interest in them commenced ; but when I began upon 
Nepos, Ca3sar, and Virgil, my repugnance to my classics ceased, and 
the Preceptor gradually relaxed in the severity of his discipline, and, I 
have no doubt, congratulated himself on its success as seen in the im- 
provement he was compelled to acknowledge. During the latter part 
of my Hfe in the Academy he was as indulgent as a temperament nat- 
urally intolerant and authoi-itative would pei-mit." 

By means of Cheever's Accidence, or in spite of it, my father 
laid at Andover the foundation of the excellent knovrledge of 
Latin, and the moderate acquaintance with Greek, which he kept 
up all his active life, and which formed the chief amusement of 
his old age. And, notwithstanding the hardships of the school- 
room, his health was undoubtedly strengthened by the simple 
habits of the country, and the pure air of the beautiful town 
where thoj^e early years were passed. The Academy, scarcely 
bigger than the little square red school-houses jet lingerinor in 
some remote rural districts, stood on the crest of the hill where 
its successor and the Theological Seminary — which, springing 
from the same root, has almost overshadowed it — tow stand. 
The view from the hill is as fine a one as well can be, of no 
greater extent. I well remember its splendor in the early sum- 

2 



26 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

mer mornings, stretching away blue and beautiful to the Monad- 
nock in the distance, the Merrimack sending up its incense of 
mist between, as it flowed along its valley. At the foot of the 
hill was the little village, and in it the old-fashioned house, with 
its roof sloping to the ground behind and its picturesque well-pole 
on one side, where the good minister of the parish lived, and 
where the happiest hours of my father's school-life were spent. 
As witness his own words : — 

" The comfort of my life was the family where I boarded. Jonathan 
French, the minister of the parish, and his wife, were father and mothei 
to me. They were both kind and affable, consulted my wants, and had 
consideration for my childhood. Before entering the service of the 
Church, Mr. French had been a soldier in the service of the Colony. 
While a sergeant at Castle William, in Boston harbor, he had seen 
something of mankind, and he was conciliating In his temper and man- 
ner. He took an interest in my progress, and occasionally assisted me 
in my studies. His wife was amiable and affectionate, but she had an 
increasing family, so that the care of the boys, my schoolfellows, six or 
eight in number, devolved on her maiden sister, Ruth Richards by name, 
who took care of our rooms, saw to our clothes, and had the general care 
of us. Aunt Ruthy was consequently an object of great importance 
to the boys, whose affections she found means to gain. We slept in one 
large chamber, in which were three or four beds, two boys occupying each. 
The family table was sufficient, but simple, the food being of the most 
common kind. Beef and pork were the standing dishes, with an ample 
supply of vegetables. As. to bread, there being little or no intercourse 
with the South, rye and Indian bread was our only supply, and that 
not always thoroughly baked. The minister alone was indulged in 
white bread, as brown gave him the heart-burn, and he could not 
preach upon it. Our time out of school was diminished by a lesson to 
be prepared for the next morning, and also by morning and evening 
prayers. On Sunday our time was filled up by morning and evening 
prayers and a commentary on some portion of Scripture, or by an ex- 
ercise to be got by heart, — either a hymn or a passage from the Bible. 
At meeting, both morning and afternoon, we carried our ink-bottles, 
and took down the heads and topics o^ the •sermon, of which, at even- 
ing prayers, we were called upon to give such an account as we could. 
The Sabbath was anything but a day of rest to us. The old Puritan 
restrictions, though wearing away and greatly reduced, were still 
wearisome and irksome 



SCHOOL DAYS AT ANDOVEE. 27 

" One rt collection of my boyhood is characteristic of the spirit of 
the times. The boys had established it as a principle that every hoop 
and sled should have thirteen marks as evidence of the political char- 
acter of the owner, — if which were wanting, the articles became fair 
prize, and were condemned and forfeited without judge, jury, or de- 
cree of admiralty." 

Thus were eight years of my father's life passed, from six to 
fourteen, at which age he went to college. During this long 
time he enjoyed the society of his mother only in the three brief 
vacations by which the weary year was diversified. Of his visits 
to his Grandfather Quincy, during these joyful episodes in the 
monotony of school-boy life, he gives this account : — 

" As early as 1 780, it was a rule with my mother to take me at least 
once a year, during the summer vacation, to visit my grandfather at 
his seat in Braintree, now Quincy. It was always to me a delightful 
and eagerly expected visit, lasting generally three or four days, and it 
never failed to be a season of perfect and uninterrupted boyish felicity. 
My grandfather's family at that time consisted, besides himself, of his 
wife and three daughters, to all of whom my visits were a kind of jubi- 
lee. And they were rendered more delightful to the family from my 
being accompanied by my mother, who was the delight of them all, 
from my grandfather downward. She was in the prime of life, very 
handsome, full of life and vivacity, and qualified in every way to be 
a universal favorite of the old and the young, the grave and the gay. 
These visits were the most joyous days of my childhood, made so by the 
kindness and affection of my grandparents and aunts, the memory of 
which is ever fresh in my mind. The only particular event out of the 
common way, that I remember, connected with these visits, is the 
neighborhood of the French fleet, under Count d'Estaing, which lay in 
Nantasket Roads during the winter of 1780-81. The officers had let- 
ters to my grandfather, and frequently came to the shore of his estate 
in their boats, and paid visits to his family, making themselves veryi 
much at home and very agreeable. While the officers were thus visit- 
ing my gi-andfather and the ladies of his family in the parlor, the sail- 
ors would throng the kitchen, and make merry with the servants. 
And if the maids should happen to lay down their knitting-work, the 
tars would often take it up and finish their task for them. 

"My grandfather died in March, 1784, when I was barely twelve 
years old. I was not present at his funeral, as the weather, the road/i, 



28 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

and the distance made it impracticable to send to Andover for me. 
By Lis will he left me his estate at Braintree, according to his pre- 
viously announced intention, and his portrait by Copley. The shares 
of his other descendants, however, were of greater value than mine." 

la the spring of 1786, Dr. Pearson removed to Cambridge, 
having been appointed Hancock Professor there ; and he was 
succeeded in the preceptorship by Ebenezer Pemberton, a grad- 
uate of Princeton College in 1765. Towards him my father en- 
tertained sentiments of warm respect and affection as long as he 
lived. He says of him, "Mild, gentle, conciliatory, and kind, 
inspiring affection and exciting neither fear nor awe, while he 
preserved and supported discipline, he made himself beloved 
and respected by his pupils," — a tribute confirmed by all who 
enjoyed his instruction, — among whom I believe were James 
Madison and Aaron Burr, — during a life chiefly devoted to 
teaching. This gentleman lived till 1836, and was past ninety 
when he died. I well remember the handsome old man, and the 
beautiful picture of serene and venerable age which he presented, 
seeming in old-world courtesy and costume to have stepped out 
of the last century into this, and the pride with which he spoke of 
the eminent men who had been his pupils, and especially of his 
having offered two Presidents — Kirkland and Qiiincy — to Har- 
vard. Under these milder auspices my father was presented in 
July, 1786, to his Alma Mater, under whose charge he remained 
for the next four years. He had selected for his chum, or room- 
mate, Peter Holt, a man twenty-four years old, of a staid and 
grave character. This judicious choice he regarded as having 
been greatly conducive to his steadiness and diligence while an 
undergraduate. Though Mr. Holt never assumed the office or 
the tone of a Mentor, the respect his young friend felt for him 
exercised a salutary influence over his character and conduct. 
Mr. Holt entered the ministry, and was settled at Epping in 
New Hampshire, where he died in 1851, in his ninetieth year. 
Though their personal intercourse in after life was necessarily 
infrequent, the two college chums preserved the friendship of 
their youth unimpaired through life. 

The studies imposed by the college authorities of that day upon 



COLLEGE LIFE. 29 

the }outh under their tuition were not severe in their nature, nor 
inordinate in their amount. A little Latin and less Greek, and 
not much mathen^atics, with a sprinkling of rhetoric, logic, meta- 
physics, and ethics, filled up the course of four years. My father, 
having been " well fitted " for college, did not find it difficult 
to master them all sufficiently to become facile princeps among 
his fellows. And in 1790, when he took his Bachelor's degree, 
he had the English Oration assigned to him, which was the high- 
est honor of his year. His life during those trying four yeara 
was exemplary, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, 
and remarkably free fi'om such follies and vices 

" As are companions noted and most known 
To youth and liberty." 

On this point he thus speaks himself: — 

" Through my youth and early manhood the main stay and stimulus 
to virtue were my aflfection for my mother, and my respect and inter- 
est in the memory of my father, which she never ceased to impress on 
my heart, and to make a motive for my life. He was naturally of an 
ardent, anxious, and passionate temperament, which gave direction and 
expression to his affection for his child, which, in its turn, enkindled a 
corresponding affection in my heart, as soon as my thoughts were suf- 
ficiently ripened to comprehend him." 

The following clause in the will of Josiah Quincy, Junior, had 
a strong influence upon the character and feelings of his son : — 

" I give to my son, Josiah, when he shall have arrived at the age 
of fifteen years, Algernon Sydney's Works, in a large quarto ; John 
Locke's Works, in three volumes, folio ; Lord Bacon's Works, in four 
volumes, folio ; Gordon's Tacitus, in four volumes ; Cato's Letters, by 
Gordon ; and Trenchard's and Mrs. Macaulay's History of England. 
May the spirit of liberty rest upon him ! " 

He never received any of the books thus impressively be- 
queathed to him, his father's library having been burnt in a 
warehouse where it had been stored for safe-keeping. But, 
nevertheless, he goes on to say: — 

*' The principles those writings inculcate have been during my 



30 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

whole life among my chiefest studies, — not more out of respect for 
the recommendation of my father, than from my perception of their 
truth and intrinsic excellence, and my conviction that on their preva- 
lence the happiness and prosperity of every society depend." 

The class of 1790 was not remarkable for the eminence of its 
members in after life. Mr. Qiiincy says of them : — 

" My classmates were almost all successful in the professions to which 
they devoted their lives. Among them I recognize sound divines, 
good lawyers, skilful physicians, — men who acted their parts well, 
filling the stations in life which Providence had assigned them with 
acceptable faithfulness. Many of them were my friends through life, 
and some were united to my heart by affections given and reciprO' 
cated." 

His most intimate friend during his college days and his early 
youth was Thomas Boylston Adams, the third son of President 
John Adams. He was a handsome man, of fine manners and 
address, and of an agreeable vein of conversation. After leaving 
college, he lived at New York and Philadelphia, his father being 
then Vice-President. In 1794, when Mr. John Quincy Adams 
was sent Minister to the Hague, he accompanied his brother, and 
spent several years abroad. On his return to America, he was 
at the bar for a few years in Philadelphia, but returned to Massa- 
chusetts early in the century, and lived in Quincy until his death, 
in 1832. He practised law there, and was for a time one of the 
Judges of the Court of Common Pleas. During the first few 
years after leaving college, a brisk exchange of letters was kept 
up between the two friends, which does great credit to their in- 
telligent interest in the politics of the time. I regret that the 
inexorable laws of space compel me to omit the extracts I had 
made from this youthful correspondence. 

The member of the class of 1790 who was the most widely 
known in after life was Joseph Dennie, of whom my father speaks 
thus in recalling the images of those early companions : — 

*' The most talented, taking light literature as the standard, was 
Joseph Dennie, whose acquaintance with the best English classics was 
uncommon at that period. His imagination was vivid, and he wrote 



JOSEPH DENNIE. 31 

with great ease and felicity. In after life he attained local eminence 
as an essayist, — first by a series of essays, under the title of ' The Lay 
Preacher,' then by others written in connection with Royall Tyler, un- 
der the firm of ' Colon & Spondee,' and finally as editor of a literary 
periodical called ' The Portfolio,' published in Philadelphia, and which 
obtained uncommon celebrity and circulation. While at college he 
might unquestionably have taken the highest rank in his class, for he 
had great happiness both in writing and elocution ; but he was negli- 
gent in his studies, and not faithful to the genius with which nature 
had endowed him." 

Mr. Dennie was a most charming companion, brilliant in con- 
versation, fertile in allusion and quotation, abounding in wit, 
quick at repartee, and of only too jovial a disposition. My 
father used to tell of the gay dinners which celebrated the not 
infrequent visits Mr. Dennie made him when he was keeping 
house with his mother. On these white days he would summon 
the flower of the youth of Boston to enjoy the society of their 
versatile friend, and the festivity which set in at the sober hour 
of two would reach far into the night before the party were will- 
ing to break up. In those good old three-bottle days, and in- 
deed for the greatest part of his life, my father was visited with 
a mortal headache, not merely after any excess in wine, but even 
after the least indulgence in the good creature. This made him, 
perforce, for many years, practically " a teetotaller," though he 
never accepted the philosophy of total abstinence ; and it may 
be that this enforced abstemiousness, especially in the hard- 
drinking days of his youth, was not without its influence on the 
perfect and unbroken health of his long life. 

Mr. Dennie made a profession of studying the law, but he did 
not waste much of his time upon the practice of it. The story 
goes that he opened an office in Charlestown, N. H., ready for 
the entertainment of clients. On a day one strayed in, but the 
interruption he caused to the leisure and favorite occupations of 
his counsel learned in the law was so great, that a repetition 
of the annoyance was carefully guarded against. Mr. Dennie 
thenceforward kept his office-door locked on the inside, and bade 
defiance to the busy world without. But as this mode of prac- 



32 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

tising the law, however agreeable in itself, was not greatly re- 
munerative, he soon afterwards wisely abandoned the profession, 
and betook himself to the more congenial pursuits of literature 
and editorship. " The Portfolio," which he established in Phil- 
adelphia, and conducted from 1800 until his death in 1812, was 
very far superior in literary ability to any magazine or periodical 
ever before attempted in this country. Indeed, it was no whit 
behind the best P^nglish magazines of that day, and would bear 
no unfavorable comparison with those of the present time on 
either side of the water. Its influence was greatly beneficial in 
raising the standard of literary taste in this country, and in 
creating a demand for a higher order of periodical literature, 
and for more exact and careful editorship. It was strongly Fed- 
eralist in its politics, and Mr. Dennie had the assistance of some 
of the best minds of that party in the political portions of his 
magazine. Among others, Mr. Quincy furnished a series of 
papers, under the signature of " Climenole," the name of the 
"flappers" employed by the philosophic inhabitants of the island 
of Laputa to awake them from their scientific reveries, as is 
related by that veracious voyager. Captain Lemuel Gulliver. 
These prolusions excited much attention at the time, and much 
curiosity to know who wrote them, the authorship having been 
kept a secret for a season. They were satirical in their vein, 
pungent and spicy in their style, and showed a turn for a lively 
way of writing, from which their writer refrained after entering 
on the serious responsibilities of public life. Mr. Dennie became 
the centre of a brilliant circle of scholarly and accomplished 
men in Philadelphia, to whose social and convivial virtues the 
poet, Thomas Moore, has recorded his authentic testimony in his 
" Poems relating to America." While in Philadelphia, in 1804, 
he was made free of this congenial guild, and shared with them 
the pleasures of their symposia. It was to them that he ad- 
dressed the passage in the Letter to Spencer, beginning, 

" Yet, yet forgive me, O you sacred few. 
Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew ; 
Whom, known and loved through many a social eve, 
'T was bliss to live with, and 't was pain to leave ! " 



JOSEPH DENNIE. 33 

We were not fortunate enough in this country to please the 
young Irish Anacreon, as a general thing ; and, as he says in a 
note to this poem, it was " in the society of" Mr. Dennie and his 
friends " that he passed the few agreeable moments of his tour. 
Whatever value we may attach to Mr. Moore's opinions as to 
American institutions, he may be admitted as a competent wit- 
ness as to the quality of 

" . . . . the nights of mirth and mind, 
Of whims that taught and follies that refined," 

whict he passed in that gay society ; and also as to " the love for 
sound literature, which he feels so zealously himself, that Mr. 
Dennie had succeeded in diffusing through this cultivated little 
circle." Some of Moore's poems appeared first in the Port- 
folio, among which was the beautiful song beginning, 

" Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved." 

Whenever Mr. Quincy passed through Philadelphia on his 
way to and from Washington, his personal intercourse with his 
old college friend was renewed, and their intimacy was inter- 
rupted only by the death of Mr. Dennie, in 1812. The Port- 
folio languished on for a few years, but did not long survive its 
founder. 



a* 



34 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

CHAPTER III. 

1790-1798. 

Studies the Law. —Boston Seventy Years since. — Federalists and 
Democrats. — Despatchful Courtship. — Visits to New York and 
Philadelphia. — Recollections op Washington. -^ Marriage. — 
Death of his Mother. 

AFTER faking his Bachelor's degree, Mr. Quincy returned to 
live permanently with his mother. She had taken posses- 
sion, in 1786, of a house in Court Street, adjoining the estate now 
known as Tudor's Buildings, which had been assigned to her by 
the General Court for a term of years in satisfaction of some 
claim of her husband upon the State. On the site of Tudor's 
Buildings lived Mr. William Tudor, or Colonel Tudor as he 
was called from his rank as Judge Advocate in the Continental 
Army ; and an intimate acquaintanceship ensued between Mrs. 
Quincy and himself and his wife, a woman of remarkable talents 
and force of character. He was a lawyer of respectable stand- 
ing, and several eminent men had studied the law with him, 
among whom may be mentioned Fisher Ames and Isaac Parker, 
afterwards Chief Justice of Massachusetts. The neighborhood 
and intimacy of the two families undoubtedly suggested him as a 
convenient and proper person to initiate young Quincy in the 
first mysteries of the law. He had at first proposed studying his 
profession at Newburyport, under the auspices of Theophilus 
Parsons, aiterwards Chief Justice, then at the nead of the bar, 
and one of the greatest lawyers this country, or any other, ever 
produced, John Quincy Adams had just issued from under his ■ 
instruction, and other young men of promise and subsequent em- 
inence sat at his feet, both before and afterwards. Mrs. Quincy, 
however, naturally enough, objected to any further separation 
from her son, and he abandoned his first intention in obedience 
to her wishes. He accordingly entered his name as a student 
with Mr. Tudor, and remained under his professional tutelage 



STUDIES THE LAW. 35 

during the three years of probation. Mr. Tudor, in the Avords 
of his pupil, "■ was gentlemanly and intelligent, but loved society 
better than labor, and literature more than law. His business 
was small, his clients few." What there was to learn of practice, 
and what there was to do of business, Mr. Quincy learned and 
did to the satisfaction of his patron. The time, however, M'hich 
this easy pupilage left upon his hands he did not waste in idle- 
ness. To use his own words : " Of my progress with Mr. Tudor 
I have nothing to boast of, and little to regret. I read much, 
and laid such a foundation of a knowledge of the great principles 
of the Common Law, and of Civil and Public Law, as has enabled 
me to conduct my private and public life with a moderate degree 
of honor and success." 

In 1793 he was admitted to the bar, and entered upon prac- 
tice. He had so far gained the confidence of his master that, on 
leaving Boston for a tour in Europe, Mr. Tudor left him in 
charge of such business and clients as he had. Mr. Quincy was 
properly diligent in business, but his practice was never large. 
He had the reputation, a good deal exaggerated, of being a young 
man of good estate and large expectations ; and clients, then as 
now, preferred giving their business, other things being equal, to 
men whose fees were their daily bread. As he used to say of 
himself, " he hung rather loosely on the profession " ; for both 
the memory of his father and the expectations of his contempora- 
ries directed his thoughts rather to public than professional life. 
He sometimes regretted this, and would blame himself for not 
having confined himself more strictly to the practice of law. 
But it is not likely, from the quality of his mind and the turn of 
his character, that he would have reached high eminence in the 
law ; or, if he had, that his life would have been as useful or as 
happy as it was made by his unstained and unselfish public 
career. During his apprenticeship to the law, and until his 
mother's death, he lived with her in the happiest of relations. 
Of this part of his life he thus speaks : — 

" In the society of my mother the natural affections of a son were 
strengthened by the cultivated affection of a friend. We lived to- 
gether for about seven years, with a mutual confidence and respect of 



30 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

■which theie are few parallels, and could be none superior. Our inter- 
est in each other was complete. I had no thought which I could not 
confide to her. I had no wish she did not gratify. The bonds which 
united us, in feelings and opinions, were the purest and the strongest 
human nature is capable of maintaining. Her temper was amiable, 
and full of vivacity, — the delight of the social circle, — and I can 
conceive of nothing stronger than the mutual love and respect which 
bound us together. Of a long life, the whole of which has been sin- 
gularly happy, I can recall no happier portion than the period that I 
thus passed with my mother. I had every source of rational enjoy- 
ment for the present. I had no cause of apprehension for the future. 
I cannot express too strongly my sense of the wisdom, as well as of 
the kindness, with which she conducted her intercourse with me, and I 
attribute such success as I have had in life to the principles and spirit 
which she early infused into me by her advice and example." 

In 1792 Mrs. Quincy and her son removed from Court Street 
to a house in Federal Street, and, in about a year afterwards, to 
a larger one, which her father had bought for her use, in Pearl 
Sti'eet. It stood on the slope of one of the three hills which 
gave to Boston its second title of Trimountain. My eldest sis- 
ter, in a privately printed Memoir of my mother, thus describes 
it and its surroundings, at the beginning of this century. The 
house then stood in the midst of open fields. 

" These are now covered by brick houses and granite stores, and its 
site is marked by the Quincy Block. It was a handsome edifice of 
three stories, the front ornamented with Corinthian pilasters ; and pil- 
lars of the same order supported a porch, from which three flights of 
steps of red sandstone, and a broad walk of the same material, de- 
scended to Pearl Street. Honeysuckles were twined round the porch, 
and high damask rose-bushes grew beneath the windows. The estate 
extended to High Street ; and at the corner of Pearl Street stood the 
stable and coach-house. The grounds ascending toward Oliver Street 
were formed into glacis, and were adorned by four English elms of full 
size and beauty, the resort of numerous birds, especially of the oriole, 
or golden robin." 

In this charming home, vrith so admirable a companion, those 
fresh years of life glided happily away. Boston, though the 
second town in importance in the United States, contained but 



BOSTON SFVENTY YEARS SINCE. 37 

eighteen thousand inhabitants. It was full of "garden-houses," 
such as lingered in London as late as Milton's time, and in one 
of which he once lived. Many of its streets — and Pearl Street 
was one of them — resembled those of a flourishing country-town 
rather than of the capital of a sovereign State. Cows were pas- 
tured, long since this century came in, where the thick houses of 
a dense population now crowd one another for room. Boys 
played ball in the streets without disturbance, or danger from the 
rush of traffic. The Common was then, and for a quarter of a 
century later, properly and technically " a common," upon which 
every inhabitant had the right of pasturing his cow. These 
" milky mothers," indeed, were very prominent members of soci- 
ety at that time, and for long afterwards, and had or took the 
freedom of the city with a perfect self-complacency, perambulat- 
ing the streets at their own free will and pleasure. The same 
privileges and immunities were enjoyed by them in Boston that 
were extended then, and until within my own observation, in 
New York, to less pastoral and uncleaner beasts. Those were 
days of small things and slow communications. The American 
cities and communities were then individual and distinct in their 
characteristics, to a degree scarcely conceivable in these days of 
multiplied population and universal travel. A journey to New 
York, then a small city of thirty thousand souls, was a much 
rarer event in life then than a voyage to Europe now. It took 
nearly as long, and was attended with greater danger and discom- 
fort. Two stage-coaches and twelve horses sufficed for the travel 
between the two chief commercial places on the continent in 
1790, and the journey consumed a week. The visits of stran- 
gers were rare events, and always the occasions of general and 
eager ho-pitality. The Boston of that day was a pleasant pla^^e 
to live in. It was well recovered from the financial embarrass- 
ments which accompanied and followed the Revolutionary war ; 
and the revival of commerce, and the opening of fields to the 
enterprise of the merchants, closed against them in the days of 
colonial dependence, were the cause of a great and growing 
prosperity. 

The intercourse of the cultivated society for which Boston was 



38 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

distill f^uished was conducted on simple and easy terms. The 
hours were early. Private parties were elegar.t, according to the 
style of the time, but infrequent in comparison with friendly gath- 
erino's of a more informal and unceremonious kind. Public as- 
semblies collected the principal inhabitants once a fortnight in 
Concert Hall, where the minuet and country-dance yet held their 
own acfainst revolutionary innovations. Solemn dinner-parties, 
after the EngUsh fashion, were of common occurrence, often long 
protracted over the discussion of politics, and of the rare growths 
of Madeira, then the favorite wine, and, indeed, almost the only 
one in use. My fathei^'s account of one of these entertainments 
may be worth preserving. He was probably by a good many 
years the last survivor of the hundreds, not to say thousands, of 
guests that John Hancock used to entertain with profuse hospital- 
ity. The historical house in which the famous Governor lived 
and died, the last of the Revolutionary period, just ruthlessly 
swept away, though of fair proportions, had no dining-room suf- 
ficient for his hospitable occasions as originally built. So he 
had a banquetting-room, taken down many years ago, built out on 
the north side of the house, extending towards what is now the 
State-House yard. My father had invited Governor Hancock 
to the entertainment he had given at Cambridge on Commence- 
ment Day, on the occasion of his graduation ; and in return he 
was invited, though so young a man, to dine with his Excellency. 
The party consisted of not less than lifty or sixty persons, and 
the dinner and its appointments were in keeping with the rank 
and fortune of the host. He, however, did not sit at meat with 
his guests, but dined at a small table by himself, in a wheel-chair, 
his legs swathed in flannel. He was a martyr to the gout, of 
which circumstance he made an excuse for doing as he pleased in 
political as well as social life. Thus, when the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution hung doubtful in the balance in the Massa- 
chusetts Convention of 1788, the gout was made the convenient 
reason for his staying away, until he was made to see that his in- 
decision must cease, and he interpose, to secure the ratification. 
My father was in the gallerj^ of the Old South Church at the 
time, and used to describe how Hancock, wrapt in flannels, was 



BOSTON SEVENTY YEARS SINCE. 39 

borne in men's arms up the broad aisle, when he made the speech 
which caused the Constitution to be accepted by nineteen major- 
ity. On the occasion with which we have now to do, when the 
Governor had despatched the frugal repast to which his infirmities 
condemned him, he wheeled himself about the general table to 
pay personal attention to his guests, and to take part in the con- 
versation. While thus engaged, and when the animation of the 
company was at its loudest, it was interrupted by a fearful crash. 
A servant, in removing a cut-glass epergne, which was the central 
ornament of the table, let it fall, and it was dashed into a thou- 
sand pieces. An awkward silence fell upon the company, when 
Hancock, with the presence of mind of true good-breeding, relieved 
their embarrassment by exclaiming, good-naturedly, " James, 
break as much as you please, but don't make such a confounded 
noise about it ! " And under the cover of the laugh thus raised 
the fragments were removed, and the talk went on as if nothing 
had happened. 

The ancient severity of manners and strictness of opinions had 
already begun to give way before more genial habits of society 
and a greateV freedom of thought. The intellectual movement 
of the eighteenth century in Europe, which went before and pre- 
pared the way for her great political revolutions, was not unfeit 
in New England. Though there was no open schism in the 
Congregationalism which was the prevailing religious denomina- 
tion in Boston and throughout New England, there had long 
been an undercurrent of dissent from its sterner doctrines, and of 
resistance to its austerer practices, which had already made itself 
manifest on the surface of social life, as it did, not many years 
later, on that of ecclesiastical affairs. Boston was then, as she 
has continued to be, her enemies being her witnesses, the head- 
quarters of free inquiry and daring discussion, which have done 
so much to modify and control religious and political opinions in 
all parts of the country. The animated discussions, incident to a 
transition stage of thought, which diversified the conversation of 
intelhgent and educated men, were favorable to the development 
of growing minds. The practices and habits of society, too, had 



40 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

undergone a great change. For instance, the theatre had fought 
its way over tlie prejudices, or the sound objections, of Puritan 
tradition, and had established itself as one of the recognized insti- 
tutions of the town. Mr. Quincy, like most lively and intelligent 
young men, loved a play, and took a warm interest in the conflict 
which raged for a while, between the old ideas and the new, over 
this innovation. He used to assist, in the French sense of the 
Vi^ord, at the " Moral Lectures," entitled " The School for Scan- 
dal," or " The Belle's Stratagem," under which disguise the drama 
souglit at first to avoid the penalties of the old jirohibitory laws. 
He was present when the sheriflf, by Governor Hancock's direc- 
tions, made his first appearance on any stage in tlie midst of a 
performance, arrested the actors, and carried them off in custody 
to answer for their misdeeds. He helped to swell the public 
opinion which, provoked by this severity of persecution, as the 
friends of the drama esteemed it, not long afterwards compelled 
the repeal of the old laws, and procured the charter of the Bos- 
ton Theatre. And he was one of the crowd that thronged its 
auditorium on the opening night, to celebrate the triumphant issue 
of the contest, and to witness what really marked an epoch in the 
history of the manners of New England. 

But this period of Mr. Quincy's youth, while he was fitting 
himself for active life, and when he first entered upon it, was a 
time of great collision of opinions and passions, which stirred 
men's minds much more deeply than disputes about stage-plays, 
or even about creeds. The Constitution of the United States 
had just been adopted, and an event so unprecedented in history 
was accompanied by many fears, as well as by many hopes. The 
contagion of the French Revolution, then at its fieriest height, 
made the fermentation of popular thought and feeling yet more 
active and intense. Tliat stupendous phenomenon, which some 
minds regarded as another Star in the P^ast, — the harbingei of 
peace and good-will on earth, — and others, as a baleful comet that 
"from its horrid hair shook pestilence and war," shed its influ- 
ences for good or evil upon the New World as well as the Old. 
It inspired terror or joy, according as the eyes which watched 
its progress looked for its issues of life or of death in faith or in 



FEDERALISTS AND DEMOCRATS. 41 

fear. The differing elements of human character subjected to 
this fierce effervescence soon crystallized into the parties of the 
Federalists and the Democrats, or, as they at first styled them- 
selves, the Republicans. These were natural parties, having 
thjir origin in the constitution of human nature. It was inevita- 
ble that different men, equally honorable and patriotic, should be 
very differently affected by so novel a spectacle as the establish- 
ment of governments recognizing the People as the source and 
ultimate depositary of the sovereign power. The sanguine and 
hopeful, in the fulness of their faith in the virtue of the people, 
had no doubts as to the success of the experiment, and looked 
with jealousy on the possible interference of the new central 
power with the freedom of the several States. The more satur- 
nine and cautious, on the other hand, especially among the edu- 
cated and wealthier classes, had less confidence in popular wisdom 
and self-control, and feared that attacks upon the rights of prop- 
erty, in particular, might be made by the ignorant and poor, under 
the leadership of artful demagogues. Such desired a strong cen- 
tral government, which should check and control the supposed 
tendency of the lower classes to these excesses. The Federalists 
hoped to find the general government one of checks and balan- 
ces, resembling, as far as the different circumstances of the two 
countries would allow, that of England, which should secure the 
fullest enjoyment of individual liberty consistent with the fullest 
protection of common rights. The Democrats feared that it 
might grow into a tyranny seeking to aggrandize the power and 
glory of the whole nation at the expense of the rights of its con- 
stituent States, and of the personal fi-eedom of the individual 
citizen. The one admired the theory and practice of the mixed 
government of England, the defects of which, in its operation 
upon those living under its immediate dominion, they trusted they 
had guarded against ; while the other yet remembered bitterly 
the injustice and sufferings that government had inflicted on their 
country as a remote dependency, and feared that the new Presi- 
dent and Congress might prove to be the old King and Parliament 
under other names. These parties sprang naturally into being 
out of the fermentation of opinions and the ebullition of passions 



42 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

of" that transitional period, and it is nothing strange that they 
should have clashed fiercely and angrily in political discussion 
and political action. 

It is curious to remark how little the lurking mischiefs of 
slavery were suspected in those first days after the adoption of 
the Constitution. It was the poor laborer at their own doors 
and not the rich slave-master a thousand miles off, that our anx 
ious fathers regarded with suspicion and dread. Mr. Quincy was 
one of the earliest to see afar off the dangers to which the rec- 
ognition of an oligarchy, resting on ownership of human beings, 
as a constituent part of our national polity, exposed the future of 
the young Republic ; and from his first entrance into public life 
to his death, this pervading and prevailing feeling gave the key- 
note to his fiercest utterances, and fui'nishes the explanation of 
his most misinterpreted actions. As one of the most promising 
young men of his time, he was approached and courted by the 
prominent Anti-Federalists of that day ; but he deliberately cast 
in his lot with the party of Washington, and never wavered in 
his allegiance to it as long as it had a name to live. Indeed, to 
the day of his death he professed and called himself a Federal- 
ist, and nothing else. After the final dispersion of the Federal 
party, he voted with various parties according to his estimation 
of their merits ; yet he never regarded himself as belonging to 
any of them, not even to the Republican party of his old age, 
though he gave his vote and the weight of his influence to its 
candidates and its policy. In his choice between the parties of 
his youth, he was solely guided by his sense of what public duty 
demanded of him ; but he was doubtless confirmed in it by the 
example and advice of many able men, most of them much his 
seniors, in Massachusetts, who then illustrated the Federal ranks, 
and who bestowed on him their countenance and fi'iendship 
Among these may be named George Cabot, Fisher Ames, 
Samuel Dexter, Harrison Gray Otis, the John Lowells, father 
and son, Theophilus Parsons, Stephen Higginson, and the like. 
By John Adams he was honored with a continuance of the 
friendship which had subsisted between his father and himself; 
and with John Quincy Adams, as a contemporary, he was ever 



FEDERALISTS AND DEMOCRATS. 43 

on terms of cordial intimacy. At the time of which we now 
speak the two Adamses were prominently and thoroughly identi- 
fied with the Federal party. And though their views of public 
duty led them both to sepaFate themselves from it at a later peri- 
od, this circumstance never affected the personal relations of Mr. 
Quincy with either of them. He began at an early age to take 
part in politics, and to speak in the town-meetings and the cau- 
cuses of the Federal party. Boston was then entirely in the 
possession of the Federalists, who welcomed his assistance, but 
were in no haste to reward it. He was content to bide his time, 
and he waited patiently while the seats in the State legislature, 
the first objects of young American ambition, were filled by 
more eager or more fortunate aspirants. He says himself on 
this subject : — 

" Both branches of the Legislature were filled with able and aspiring 
men, who were not willing to give way to a man younger and as yet 
untried. Nor, on my part, was I very desirous of place. The habits 
of my mind made me regard political position as a post of labor and 
service, and that the honor of holding it was counterbalanced, if not 
outweighed, by the responsibilities and obligations it involved. I con- 
tented myself, therefore, without complaint or solicitation, with waiting 
for several years without any notice from my fellow-citizens of my party 
labors." 

In effect, he never sat in the lower house of the General 
Court, excepting for a very short time many years later, and it 
was not until 1804 that he was elected to the State Legislature 
as one of the Senators of the Boston district. Notwithstanding 
the good sense and philosophy with which he accepted his fate, 
there can be little doubt that he did not consider himself as well 
treated by his party friends. 

The year 1794 was a memorable one in the history of my 
father, as being the date of his first acquaintance with the lady 
who afterwards became his wife. In September of that year, 
Miss Eliza Susan Morton accompanied one of her brothers on a 
journey he made from New York to Boston on business. She 
was the daughter of John Morton, a native of the North of Ire- 
land, of Scottish descent, who came to America in the commis- 



44 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

sary department of the British army about the middle of the 
last century, and afterwards became a thriving merchant in the 
city of New York. When the Revohitionary troubles began, he 
was a prosperous and wealthy man, and he might have remained 
under British protection during the occupation of that city, if 
his Whig principles would have permitted it. But " the Rebel 
banker," as he was styled by the Tories, cast in his lot with his 
adopted country. He removed with his family first to Elizabeth- 
town, and afterwards to Baskingridge, in New Jersey, having first 
deposited the bulk of his fortune in the Loan Office. The Gov- 
ernor of New Jersey appointed him one of his aides-de-camp, but 
he died of a fever before seeing any active service. He married, 
in 1761, Maria Sophia Kemper, who was born at Caub on the 
Rhine in 1739, but came to America in infancy with her par- 
ents, — persons of easy if not affluent circumstances, who, yielding 
to a species of epidemic of emigration prevailing in Germany at 
that time, exchanged a comfortable home and refined circle of 
society in Europe for the hardsliips and privations of a new 
country. After the evacuation of New York, Mrs. Morton re- 
turned to the city, and brought her children up well, and lived 
creditably on what could be recovered of her husband's prop- 
erty.* Miss Morton, at the time of her first visit to Boston, was 
about twenty years old, not handsome, but with an intelligent face 
and pleasing person, with very winning manners and most agree- 
able powers of conversation. My father's fate was decided at 
their first interview. In a week from the day that he first met 
her and learned the fact of her existence, he was engaged to be 
married to her ! It is proper to say, however, that lie did not 
commend the abstract prudence of his conduct in this particular, 
fortunate as its results happened to be, or advise his sons, or any 
ingenuous youth who might seek his counsel, to imitate the pre- 
cipitate energy of his example. But I have no doubt that my 
readers would ratlier have his own account than mine of this 
interesting passage of his life. 

* This excellent lady spent the last years of her life in Mr. Quincy's family, 
and died at Cambridge during his Presidency, September, 1832, in her ninety- 
fourth year. 



DESPATCHFUL COURTSHIP, 45 

"On a Sunday evening in September, 1794, I went, as was my 
habit, to the liouse of Ebenezer Storer, the husband of my paternal 
aunt (Hannah Quincy). It was a hospitable, pleasant family, enter- 
taining their friends most agreeably, of whom it was the resort on the 
Sunday evenings. On this evening I was casually introduced to a 
young lady from New York, a Miss Morton, of whose existence I had 
never before heard. There was nothing uncommonly prepossessing in 
her appearance, and she made no impression on my mind or fancy. 
Another of my aunts, Mi*s. Guild, was also present, and soon asked 
me to retire with her to an adjoining room, as she wished my advice 
on some business matters. While thus engaged, the stranger lady, at 
the request of the company in the parlor, began to sing one of the 
beautiful songs of Burns, with a clearness of voice and an exquisite 
taste and feeling which, though I was not very impressible by music, 
at once struck a chord in my heart never touched before, and excited 
emotions I had never before experienced. I at once threw down Mrs. 
Guild's papers, saying I could attend to nothing else while that lady 
was singing, and returned to the company. At the request of the 
company the young lady sung several other songs of Burns with equal 
excellence and a like effect on myself. I immediately entered into 
conversation with her, which strengthened and increased my previous 
impression in her favor. I found an intelligence of no common order, 
and a well-educated mind, with no apparent desire to attract admira- 
tion, and I felt my heart drawn towards her by an impulse apparently 
irresistible. On inquiry 1 found she was to remain in Boston but a 
single week, and was at a boarding-house with her brother. I knew 
of no means to pursue a further acquaintance, to seek which I was 
impelled by a power of which I had previously no conception. My 
difficulty in this respect, however, was soon removed. She was taken 
from her boarding-house by Mrs. Craigie, the wife of Andrew Craigie, 
a gentleman of fortune, who lived in great style at Cambridge in the 
fine house which had been Washington's head-quarters, and is now the 
residence of the poet Longfellow. Here I soon found means to culti- 
vate her acquaintance, and had an opportunity of learning the extraor- 
dinary personal interest taken In her, and the admiration felt for her 
character and attainments by those who had had the opportunity of 
knowing her. Of these I found several among the most excellent and 
cultivated members of our own society. Mr. Craigie, who had lived 
in New York, and was intimately acquainted with her and her family, 
and George Cabot, who had known her intimately when he was Sena- 
tor of the United States, and Mrs. Cabot, were loud in her p-aises. 



46 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

My uncle by marriage, Edward Dowse, had known her mother in New 
York, and spoke of her as a lady of exemplary life and manners, re- 
ligious and refined, of a good family, once rich and still able to keep 
on the level of the best families in New York, though her property had 
been much diminished by the war. He said the young lady was highly 
valued by all that knew her, and that she was especially intimate with 
Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut, he then being Secretary 
of the Treasury of the United States, and also with the Reverend Dr. 
Samuel Stanhope Smith, the President of Princeton College, in whose 
family she had been educated,* and by the members of which she was 
greatly beloved. She was also intimate with the family of Theodore 
Sedgwick, afterwards Speaker of the House of Representatives, and 
usually spent some months of every summer with them at Stock- 
bridge." 

It was fortunate, perhaps, for his own satisfaction at the time, 
that my father was able to find such excellent testimony to the 
worth of the lady with whom he thus linked his fate for life with 
characteristic despatch, and it was still more fortunate for him- 
self and his children that it was all more than borne out by the 
experience of fifty-three years ; but it is not likely, in the state 
of mind which he was then in, that the absence of all evidence in 
her favor, or the presence of any amount of it to her disadvan- 
tage, would have deterred him from taking the step he did. He 
says himself, after giving this account of the transaction : — • 

" I have been thus particular on points which give a semblance of 
justification to my conduct in this, the most critical act of my life, and 
the one which has contributed more than any other to its happiness, 
because I regard it as having apparently no element of wisdom or pru- 
dence. But I have always encouraged myself to believe that all men 
are at times, if not always, subject to invisible influences, suggesting 
thoughts and communicating impulses which give direction to the 
■whole course of their lives. That there is, as the poet expresses it, 
' .... a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rougli-hew them how we will.' 
True or false, this belief is consolatory and useful.' ' 

* My mother was not, strictly speaking, "educated" in President Smith's 
family; but he took great interest in her improvement, directed her reading, 
and assisted her by his advice in that self-education which is the best of all ed- 
ucations. 



VISITS TO NEW YORK AND PHILADELPHIA. 47 

However this may have been, whether it were " God's good 
providence," or " a lucky hit," this sudden choice of a wife was not 
one of those made in haste to be repented of at leisure. It was 
justified by the experience of more than half a century, and not 
only constituted his chief domestic happiness, but was a constant 
incentive and assistance to his public service. Miss Morton 
returned to New York at the end of her memorable week's visit. 
A correspondence was kept up between the betrothed pair, but 
the engagement was kept a secret even from their nearest rela- 
tives and dearest friends. It would seem as if there were no 
sufficient reason for this concealment, as the parties were of full 
age, and of an equality of condition which must have prevented 
any objections to the suitableness of the match. The only ex- 
cuse given for it was a tour in Europe which Mr. Quiucy con- 
templated, and until the completion of which they preferred to 
keep their relations to each other to themselves. The next win- 
ter my father made his arrangements for this tour, and took New 
York and Philadelphia in his way, with the ostensible purpose 
of seeing the world, but with the real one of seeing the lady 
of his love. His own account of this journey and visit is as 
follows : — 

" I set out from Boston, the end of December, 1 794, or the begin- 
ning of January, 1795, in the line of stages lately established by an 
enterprising Yankee, Pease by name, which at that day was considered 
a method of transpoi'tation of wonderful expedition. The journey to 
New York took up a week. The carriages were old and shackling, 
and much of the harness made of ropes. One pair of horses carried 
the stage eighteen miles. We generally reached our resting-place for 
the night, if no accident intervened, at ten o'clock, and, after a frugal 
supper, went to bed with a notice that we should be called at three the 
next morning, — which generally proved to be half past two. Then, 
whether it snowed or rained, the traveller must rise and make ready 
by the help of a horn lantern and a farthing candle, and proceed on 
his way over bad roads, — sometimes with a driver showing no doubt- 
ful symptoms of drunkenness, which good-hearted passengers never 
failed to improve at every stopping-place by urging upon him the com- 
fort of another glass of toddy. Thus we travelled, eighteen miles a 
stage, sometimes obliged to get out and help the coachman lift the 



48 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

coach out of a quagmire or rut, and arrived at New York after a 
week's hard travelHng, wondering at the ease as well as expedition 
with which our journey was effected." 

Mr. Quincy's companion on this journey was William Sullivan, 
a young man two or three years bis junior, who had just been 
admitted to the bar, at which he afterwards rose to eminence. 
A great intimacy had lately sprung up between the two young 
men, which endured without interruption until the death of Mr. 
Sullivan in 1839. He was the only confidant of the love-secret 
which was the real occasion of their expedition. Mr. Sullivan 
had every engaging quality that should invite friendship, and 
every solid excellence that should confirm it. Those of us who 
remember his winning address, the charm of the mingled sense 
and pleasantry of his conversation, and the absolute perfection of 
his manners, can readily imagine what an incomparable friend 
he must have been in his youth and at such a conjuncture. 
Political sympathy also was a strong tie to unite the two friends. 
Mr. Sullivan was a Federalist of the Federalists, although his 
father, James Sullivan, was a leader of the Democracy, and ulti- 
mately became Governor of the State through the support of 
that party. " This difference of opinion with his father," says 
Mi\ Quincy, " occasioned him great pain, and subjected him to 
many temptations which he had the principle to withstand. He 
was a true and faithful friend, and in all respects a worthy and 
useful citizen of the Republic." 

Mr. Quincy took letters to the family of Miss Morton, and thus 
had free access to her society. He also had introductions to 
many of the principal inhabitants of New York, from whom he 
received very flattering attentions. One of the distinguished 
acquaintances he thus made was Alexander Hamilton, who, if 
Washington was the head, was then the leader of the Federal 
party. I am not sure whether it was at General Hamilton's 
table at this time, or at his own when Hamilton afterwards 
visited Boston, that a conversation occurred which I have often 
heard my father repeat. It turned on the character and talents 
of his deadly rival, Aaron Burr. In reply to the question 
whether Burr was a man of great talents, " Not of great tal- 



VISllS TO NEW YORK AND PHILADELPHIA. 49 

ents," replied Hamilton. " His mind, though brilliant, is shal- 
low, and incapable of broad views or continued effort. He sel- 
dom speaks in court more than twent}^ minutes, and though his 
speeches are showy and not without effect upon a jury, they 
contain no proof of uncommon powers of mind. But," he add- 
ed, suiting the action to the word, and describing a circle about 
his head with his hand, " he has an ambition that will never be 
satisfied until he has encircled his brows with a diadem ! " The 
openness with which Hamilton expressed his contempt for the 
talents and character of Burr, of which this striking statement to 
a young stranger was but a casual example, was doubtless a main 
cause of the personal bitterness on the part of his antagonist 
which pursued him to the death. 

Afte'r a delightful visit of a fortnight to New York, Mr. Quincy 
proceeded to Pliiladelphia. He put up at the hotel where Vice- 
President Adams had his apartments, who showed his young 
friend much kindness, and invited him to make use of his private 
parlor as if it were his own. He received from the most promi- 
nent gentlemen of Philadelphia, to whom he brought letters or 
was introduced by Mr. Adams, in his own words, "a series of at- 
tentions which 1 can never forget." He mentions, particularly, 
Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, William Bing- 
ham, Samuel Breck, and John Vaughan, as among those to 
whom he was especially indebted for hospitable attentions. At 
the table of Mr. Bingham he met Talleyrand, who was then in 
this country in temporary exile. It was during this unwilling 
residence in America, in the intermediate state of humiliation 
through which he passed from the bishopric of Autun to the 
principality of Beneventum, that the cynical diplomatist formed 
the opinion as to the pleasures of society in this country at that 
time, of wliich he gave an epigrammatical expression twenty 
years later. A French lady of rank, who had also been an 
emigrant to America at the same time with Talleyrand, on 
presenting an American to him in 1815, added, '* You have not 
forgotten. Prince, the ball you and I were at together in Phila- 
delphia?" — "Ah, no!" rephed the Prince, re-enforcing the sneer 
by an indescribably eloquent shrug of the shoulders ; " the Amer- 

3 D 



50 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

icans are a hospitable people, a magnanimous people, and are 
destined to be a great nation, — mais letir luxe est affreux! " 

Of course Mr. Quincy was presented to President Washington, 
who then held his regular levees every other Tuesday, at which 
he received such persons as were thought to be entitled to tiie 
distinction. The court of Washington was modelled "in little" 
a'^ter tiiat of the England of that time in its forms and rules. 
The indiscriminate admissions of later daj's were undreamed of. 
No one was admitted unless introduced by one of the members of 
(he Cabinet, or by some private gentleman personally known to 
the President. These receptions were held in the dining-room of 
I lie house on the south side of Market Street, between Fifth and 
Sixth which Washington occupied during his official residence in 
Philadelphia. This room, which was in the rear of the house, 
looking into the garden, was used for this purpose, as being the 
largest in the house. The President stood fronting the door of 
entrance, in the full dress of Stuart's full-length portrait, and the 
strangers were successively presented to him. This done, and the 
guests, including those previously received, having all arrived, 
the company took their places in a circle round tiie room. The 
circle formed, the President made the circuit of it, addressing a 
few words to each individual, after which the party broke up. 
The receptions were held from three to four in the afternoon. 

I was curious to know how ray fjither's recollections of the 
personal appearance of Washington agreed with the popular 
descriptions and pictorial representations of it with which we are 
all familiar. He was not an imaginative man, and never dressed 
his heroes in the colors of fancy. No man had a profounder 
reverence for Washington than he, but this did not affect his 
perceptions of physical phenomena, nor his recollections of them. 
My mother, on the contrary, was " of imagination all compact," 
and Washington was in her mind's eye, as she recalled him, more 
than a hero, — a superior being, as far above the common race of 
mankind in majesty and grace of person and bearing as in moral 
grandeur. This was one of the few subjects on which my father 
and mother differed in opinion. He maintained that Stuart's 
portrait is a highly idealized one, presenting its great subject as 



RECOI LECTIONS OF WASHINGTON. 61 

the artist thought he ought to live in the minds of posterity, but 
not a strong resemblance of the actual man in the flesh. He 
always declared that the portrait by Savage in the College 
dining-room in Harvard Hall, at Cambridge, was the best like- 
ness he had ever seen of Washington, though its merits as a 
work of art are but small. With this opinion my mother could 
not away. Stuart's Washington could hardly come up to the 
gracious figure that dwelt in her memory. One day, when talk- 
ing over those times in his old age, I asked my father to tell me 
what were his recollections of Washington's personal presence 
and bearing. " I will tell you," said he, " ju«t how he struck me. 
He reminded me of the gentlemen who used to come to Boston 
in those days to attend the General Court from Hampden or 
Franklin County in the western part of the State. A little 
stiff in his person, not a little formal in his manners, not particu- 
larly at ease in the presence of stranger;^. He had the air of a 
country gentleman not accustomed to mix much in society, per- 
fectly polite, but not easy in his address and conversation, and not 
graceful in his gait and movements." From the recollections 
of Mr. Sullivan, which he published many years afterwards, it 
would seem that the impression made upon him by Washington, 
who was the object of his political idolatry, was much the same 
as that made upon his friend. He says : " In his own house his 
action was calm, deliberate, and dignified, without pretensions to 
gracefulness or peculiar manner, but merely natural, as might be 
expected in such a man. When walking in the street, his move- 
ment had not the soldierly air which might have been expected. 
His habitual motions had been formed long before he took com- 
mand of the American armies, in the wars of the interior, or in 
the surveying of wilderness lands, — employments in which ele- 
gance and grace were not likely to be acquired." * It certainly 
was perfectly natural that Washington's manners should have 
been those of a country gentleman living remote from cities, he 
having been engaged in rural occupations the chief of his life, 

* " Familiar Letters on Public Characters and Public Events from the Peace 
of 1783 to the Peace of 1815." A book full of interesting matter, long out of 
print, and well deserving to be reprinted. 



62 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

moving in a very narrow circle of" society, when he was called at 
the age of forty-three to the leadership of the Revolution. 

While thus pleasantly occupied in Philadelphia, Mr. Quincy 
was making his preparations for his European tour. His plan 
was to travel overland on horseback — then the only tolerable 
mode of locomotion in the regions he proposed visiting — through 
Virginia and North Carolina to Charleston in South Carolina. 
Having thus seen what were then the principal portions of his 
own country, he intended to take passage in a merchant-vessel, 
for as yet packet-ships were not, from Charleston for Europe. 
In this design he bought two horses, hired a confidential servant, 
and was on the eve of departure. The very day before he was 
to begin his journey southward, he received letters from Boston 
announcing the failure of a mercantile house, which involved a 
considerable portion of his own property, and a material part of 
that of some of his female relatives. This news changed his 
plans at once. He sold his horses, dismissed his servant, and 
returned forthwith to Boston, making only a flying visit to Miss 
Morton as he passed through New York. " Thus ended," he 
says, "a project of an American and European tour which I had 
never afterwards the opportunity or inclination to revive." My 
father never seemed to regret the loss of this opportunity of 
foreign travel. It was a means of mental improvement of which 
he always undervalued the benefits and exaggerated the disad- 
vantages. I cannot but think, however, considering the interest- 
ing state of Europe at that time, and the excellent introductions 
he had with him, that such an experience would have been of 
great advantage to him as a part of his preparation for his polit- 
ical career, as well as the fit conclusion of a liberal education. 

Tlie next two years he spent in the pursuits of law and of 
politics, with moderate success in the one, but with increasing in- 
terest in the other. Party spirit ran high in Boston, as in all 
other parts of the country. Jay's treaty, French insolence, Eng- 
lish aggressions, agitated and inflamed the general mind. The 
Federalists were accused by the Democrats of aristocratic and 
monarchical leanings towards England, while the Democrats 
were believed by the Federalists to be ready to second the mad 



VISIT TO PRENCETON. 63 

schemes of France, and eager to follow in her bloody footsteps. 
The art of political lying was carried to a perfection which has 
hardly admitted of improvement in our later times. The cal- 
umnies heaped on the head of Abraham Lincoln at the beginning 
of his Pre.~idency were not more atrocious nor more malignant 
than those poured out upon that of George Washington during 
his second administration. He was accused of moral imbecility, 
of personal cowardice, of want of military capacity, of treachery 
to the liberties of his country, and even of pecuniary dishonesty. 
Mr. Quincy had an opportunity of a nearer view of the workings 
of the Anti-Washington faction than Boston could afford him, on 
his first visit to Philadelphia, the hot-bed in which its rankest lies 
were forced, and again at a second visit he paid to that city in 
the autumn of the next year. He made a journey to Princeton 
in September, 1796, to attend the Commencement of the College 
there ; but more particularly, it may be believed, to meet Miss 
Morton, who was then on a visit to Dr. Smith, the President of 
the College. He was received and treated with great distinction 
by President Smith, who obtained for him, of his own mere mo- 
tion, the honorary degree of Master of Arts. Thence he attend- 
ed Miss Morton to Philadelphia to the house of her mother's 
sister, Mrs. Susan Jackson, who is yet remembered by many of 
all ranks in Boston and Philadelphia, — between which cities her 
later years were divided, — and by the poor even more warmly 
than by the rich, as a beautiful example of a serene and happy 
old age, — 

" Whose cheerful day benevolence endears, 
Whose night congratuhiting conscience cheers, — 
The general favorite as the general friend." 

Her husband, Dr. Jackson, was one of the most zealous of the 
Anti- Washington party, and the intimate associate of Dallas, Du- 
ane, Gallatin, McKean, and others, who never spoke of Wash- 
ington in their political cabals but as Montezuma, and whose 
labors to destroy his power and influence by blackening his char- 
acter were industrious and unceasing. All the personal kindness 
and amiable qualities of Dr. Jackson could not make the factious 
\ irulence of his party less abhorrent to young Quincy, and he 



54 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

returned home more fixed and fervent in his Federal zeal than 
ever. 

The following letter fi'om President Adams was occasioned by 
an entertainment given in Concert Hall to Citizen Adet, the 
Minister of the Directory to the United States, at which several 
of the prominent Federalists had been induced to assist. Mr. 
Adams expresses with characteristic energy his sense of the un- 
wisdom of the friends of the Administration in thus giving their 
countenance to that troublesome and insolent envoy of French 
democracy. I cannot say whether my father- was one of the 
party or not ; but I think it very improbable, as it was not a 
kind of trap he would be likely to fall into. 

President Adams to Mr. Quincy. 

"Philadelphia, February 21, 1797. 

Dear Sir : — I received in its time your favor of the 2d inst., and 
thank you for your clear and satisfactory answers to my questions. 

" Pray tell me, entre nous, whether you were one of the citizens 
who fraternized with Citizen Adet at Concert Hall ? Whether Citizen 
Lincoln and Citizen Higginson were not a little in the compunctions 
for the illegitimate embraces they gave and received on that day ? 
They seemed to me to be stolen amours at the time. 

" We may smile a little sub rosa at these runnings astray after stolen 
waters of our good friends, and meritorious characters. But it is a 
serious thing. It is very dangerous for private persons to exhibit these 
ostentatious feasts to foreign ambassadors, which lead to political con- 
sequences of the first magnitude, and embarrass the best-intentioned 
government in the world. The enthusiasm of the American people 
for the French Revolution, a thing beyond their knowledge to judge 
of, and of no importance to their interests or engagements, has been 
countenanced in Boston by the best friends of the American govern- 
ment, and even by the best newspaper in that town, to the detriment 
of our public aifairs upon many occasions. This must be in confi- 
dence. You must conceal with great care my correspondence with 
you, otherwise it may tend to the disadvantage of both. 

" I enclosed to Mrs. Adams a power of attorney to you. If she 
should have occasion to prosecute some hardy trespasser, she will em 
ploy you, — so that we shall have business to write about. 
" I am, sir, your most obed't, 

"John Adams." 



MARRIAGE. 55 

It was during this visit to Princeton and Philad*ilphia that the 
time of their marriage was arranged between nx^ father and 
mother, and fixed for the next summer. But my readers will 
prefer his own account of this matter to mine. 

" At the end of the year 1796 I thought it was time to make my 
engagements with Miss Morton pubHc, and bring them to completion. 
1 made my purposes known to my mother early in January, who at 
once acceded to my views. An only son, with whom she had lived in 
mutual harmony and confidence for eleven or twelve years, ever since 
his entry into college, could not wish to be separated from her, and her 
own wishes entirely coincided with my own. It was only the intro- 
duction of a single individual, and she her son's wife, into a house 
amply sufficient for a large family, that was the subject of consider- 
ation. The whole matter was settled in one evening. Although she 
had never seen Miss Morton, she had heard of her through others, 
and she had also entire confidence in my judgment, and wished to see 
me married." 

Although my father seems to have considered his mother's 
ready consent to this arrangement entirely a matter of course, I 
cannot but think that she deserves more credit for the good sense 
and good temper she showed on this occasion than he accords to 
her. It must have been a most painful moment to her maternal 
feelings, however well she may have concealed it, when her only 
son disclosed to her that he had been secretly engaged to be mar- 
ried for more than two years, and to a stranger whom she had 
never seen, and whom he proposed bringing home to her house. 
Fortunately, the connection proved an eminently happy one for 
herself as well as for her son, and gave to the brief remainder 
of her life the new happiness of the love and society of a daugh- 
ter. My father thus continues his narrative : — 

" With her [his mother's] entire approbation I communicated my 
intentions to Miss Morton, and in the month of May, 1797, I set off for 
New York on my matrimonial tour. My mother could not be per- 
suaded to accompany me. A journey to New York was not then such 
an occasion of pleasure as it is now ; and without any expectation that 
any one of my family relations would be present at the ceremony of 
my marriage, I reached New York, and settled all preliminaries with 
the lady's friends, fixing the day on which the marriage was to take 



56 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

place, of which I duly informed my friends in Boston. To my sur- 
prise, two days before the appointed day my uncle, Edward Dowse, 
with my aunt, Mrs. Dowse, appeared, having come on solely for my 
wedding. I had always been a great favorite with them, and their 
presence gave me great delight. 

"On the 6th of June, 1797, I was married to Miss Morton, by 
Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, President of Princeton College, who 
came from Princeton for that purpose, the lady having been always a 
favorite with him, and often an inmate in Jiis family. The next day 
we set forth in a coach and four, for the state of the roads at that day 
did not permit travelling such a distance, with any expedition, with 
less equipage. The stage-coaches were intolerable, and the passage 
through the Sound still worse. After a journey of about five days we 
reached the house of the Rev. Asa Packard, in Marlborough. He was 
the minister of the parish, and had married my aunt, the youngest 
daughter of my grandfather, Josiah Quincy of Braintree. With Mr. 
and Mrs. Packard resided my grandmother, Mrs. Ann Qiiincy, and 
here my mother met us. The happy unison of mind and spirit be- 
tween my wife and my mother which was soon apparent, and which 
grew into perfect aifection, filled the measure of my happiness. We 
proceeded at once to Boston, and from that time we formed a happy, 
happy family. My mother found my wife all she had desired, more 
than she had hoped, and by my wife these feelings and aifections were 
cordially reciprocated." 

This happiness did not remain long unbroken. In March, 
1798, just before the birth of my father's first child, his mother 
was suddenly seized with an inflammation of the lungs, of which 
she died on the 23d of the month, in the fifty-fourth year of her 
age. At the time of this calamity my mother was in a very crit- 
ical condition, and her physician told my father that the knowl- 
edge of it would probably prove fatal to her. It may be w-ell 
imagined how much this circumstance must have aggravated the 
agony of his grief at the loss of such a parent, who had been te 
him, in his own words, " father and mother, brother and sieter, a 
combination of all the relations of which human nature is capa- 
ble, my friend, my adviser, my guide, and my guardian." In 
accordance with the advice of Doctor Danforth, Mrs. Quincy's 
death was kept concealed from her daughter-in-law, who sup- 
posed her all the time to be in the opposite bedroom. For a 



DEATH OF HIS MOTHER. 67 

whole fortnight, whenever ray father went into my mother's room, 
he was obliged to assume an appearance of cheerfulness, ex- 
change his mourning for his common dress, have his hair pow- 
dered, — powder, it seems, being inconsistent with mourning, — 
answer her anxious questionings, and quiet her apprehensions as 
best he might. It is right to say, however, that my mother, who 
detested the cruel kindness of what is called " the breaking " of 
ill news, considered these precautions to have been as ill-judged 
in regard to herself as they were distressing to her husband. 
The uncertainty and anxiety of her mind, and the haunting sense 
from which she could not escape of some dread mystery brooding 
over the house which was kept concealed from her, she believed 
to have been more likely to do her a mischief than the full 
knowledge of the worst, at the moment it happened. 

In this state of things, it was of course impossible that the 
funeral of my grandmother should proceed from the house in 
Pearl Street ; and she was, accordingly, removed to that of her 
brother, William Phillips, in Tremont Street, opposite the King's 
Chapel Churchyard. Here the funeral services were performed 
on Thursday, the 29th of March. Funerals in those days were 
conducted with much more pomp and circumstance than now at- 
tend them, and the position of Mrs. Quincy in society, and the 
admiration and affection of her troops of friend:^, made hers a 
large and impressive one. In the night after the funeral ser- 
vices, my father, accompanied only by a most intimate friend, 
John Phillips, followed his mother to her appointed resting-place 
in the tomb built by her husband's orders, at Quincy, for himself 
and her, in which none other was to be laid. It was midnight 
with the moon at full when he reached the spot, and directed 
the sepulchre to be opened. Descending into it, he laid his 
mother by the side of the husband of her youth, and then closed 
its door forever. 



8* 



68 LITE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

CHAPTER IV. 

1798-1805. 

' John Adams's War." — Fourth of July Oration. — Defeated for 
Congress. — John Quincy Adams supersedes him, and is also de- 
feated. — In the State Senate. — Attacks the Slave Ratio op 
Representation. — Elected to Congress. — Preparation for Parlia- 
mentary Life. — Journey to Washington. — Visit to New Haven. — 
Connecticut Federalists. — Federalists of New York. — Jacob and 
Washington Morton. — Life at Washington. 

AFTER this rapid succession of joys and sorrows, Mr. Quincy 
resumed the course of professional and political life which 
the death of his mother had interrupted for a season. The gloom 
which that sudden calamity had spread over bis home was in due 
time dispersed by the presence and society of the young wife of 
his choice, and it became again the scene of every domestic hap- 
piness. In his profession he was moderately successful, but he re- 
fused to give that undivided attention to the law which so jealous 
a mistress demands. His thoughts were more earnestly given 
to public affairs, which wei'e then in a most interesting and criti- 
cal condition. The insults of the French Directory, encouraged 
by the ferocious bitterness of their partisans in this country, had 
reached a point where armed resistance or the surrender of 
national independence seemed to be the only alternative left 
to the American people. Talleyrand had reported to the Di- 
rectory, as the result of the observations of his exile, that the 
United States were of no more consequence, and need be treated 
with no more ceremony, than Genoa. As soon as the Federal 
party — or the English party, as the French government cho^e to 
regard it — had succeeded in electing Adams to the Presidency 
over Jefferson, then considered the champion of French ideas, 
the Directory proceeded to act upon this hint. On the slightest 
pretexts of breaches of neutrality, American ships were seized 
and confiscated ; it was ordained that American seamen taken on 
board British ships, even if it could be proved that they had been 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 59 

impressed against their will, should be considered and treated as 
pirates ; and the requisitions for the qualification of a ship as 
neutral were so adjusted as to make that character almost an 
impossibility. As commerce was then the main resource of the 
country, and especially of its Northern section, this state of things, 
not only touched nearly the national honor, but affected the busi- 
ness and livelihood of almost the entire population. Then the 
affronts offered to the nation in the persons of her envoys, Pinck- 
ney, Marshall, and Gerry, whom President Adams, as a last at-| 
tempt to obtain redress without war, had despatched to France, 
and the attempt to extort tribute for the French Republic, and 
bribes for its officials, as the price of their reception, raised the 
indignation of all who valued the honor of the country to a white 
heat. The measures which usually precede and announce a dec- 
laration of war had been taken. Merchant-vessels were per- 
mitted first to arm in their own defence, and afterwards to make 
prize of ships making depredations on our commerce. Later, 
public and private vessels were authorized to capture any armed 
French ships, the army and navy were increased, Washington 
was appointed Commander-in-Chief, the treaties with France 
were abrogated, intercourse with her citizens prohibited, and 
soon Stewart, Hull, tlie two Decaturs, Rodgers, and Bainbridge, 
besides the veterans Barry and Truxton, began to make our in- 
fant navy respected by its brilliant successes upon the ocean. In 
the stormy excitement caused by these foreign exasperations, and 
by domestic conflict with the party which he in common with all 
the Federalists believed to be in secret alliance, as it was in open 
sympathy, with these insolent enemies of the nation, Mr. Quincy 
shared with all tlie energy of his ardent temperament and uncom- 
promising spirit. 

In the very heat of these agitations, he was asked to deliver 
the oration on the 4th of July, 1798, at the town celebration 
of the anniversary of Independence. The effect which his ora- 
tion produced upon the audience in the Old South Church was 
long remembered by those who heard it, for the fiery enthusiasm 
it aroused, and the passionate tears it drew forth. The interest 
it excited was not confined to the public to which it was ad- 



60 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

dressed. It was reprinted in Philadelphia, then the seat of gov- 
ernment, and elicited many gratifying expressions of their sense 
of its timeliness and its merits from eminent men in different 
parts of the country. Its style was not free from the usual rhe- 
torical excesses of young orators, but it breathed the spirit of 
liberty, and was informed with the spirit of the times, and is not 
uninteresting now as an expression of the prevailing passions 
that inspired it. The following letter from the Presid-ent of the 
United States is the only one for which I have room. 

Pkesident Adams to Mr. Quincy. 

" Philadblphu, July 16, 17-98. 
"Dear Sir: — I have received and read with great pleasure your 
brilliant oration. It is as sensible as it is eloquent. It is one of the 
most precious morsels that our country has produced upon such occa- 
sions. I hope it will be the means of bringing you forward out of that 
domestic repose in which you seem to place too much of your delight. 
I cannot blame you, however. 

" I love you the better for the motto on your title-page.* It is an 
amiable tribute from such a son to such a father. 
"My compliments to Mrs. Quincy. 

" I am, dear sir, yours, &c., 

"John Adams." 

It was a good deal owing to the reputation Mr. Quincy gained 
by this oration, that the Federalists selected him as their candi- 
date for Congress at the election of November, 1800. He was 
twenty-eight years old, but this was regarded then as so infantile 
an age for a member of Congress, that the Democratic papers 
called aloud for a cradle to rock the Federal candidate in. His 
antagonist was Dr. William Eustis, who had served on the medi- 
cal staff of the Revolutionary army, and was an active partisan 
of the anti-Washington school of politics. He was afterwards 
Secretary of War, under Jefferson and Madison, and later Gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, in which office he died in 1825. The 
election of 1800 was a hotly contested and very close one. Mr. 
Quincy had a majority of the votes of the town of Boston, but 

* An extract from the " Observations on the Boston Port Bill," &c., by Jo- 
siah Quincy, Jr. 



DEFEATED FOR CONGRESS. 61 

these were overborne by those of the country towns, now form- 
ing the county of Norfolk, which then made a part of the First 
Congressional District. This success of an Anti-Federal candi- 
date in the very stronghold of Federalism was a part of the 
political revokition which destroyed forever the national ascen- 
dency of the Federal party. For at the national election held at 
this same time, John Adams was defeated, and the Federal party 
fell with him, as a national force. This result was due in some 
degree to divisions in the Federal ranks, arising partly from ani- 
mosities personal to Mr. Adams, but chiefly from his nomination 
of a Minister Plenipotentiary to France. He did not take this 
step, however, until the Directory, through Talleyrand, then Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs, had given him the assurance of a re- 
spectful reception for his envoy, which he had exacted as a 
condition precedent of a renewal of diplomatic intercourse. The 
great body of the Federalists, under the lead of Hamilton, were 
eager for a war with France, partly from abhorrence of her revo- 
lutionary excesses and from sympathy with the English crusade 
against them, and partly from the belief that it would rally the 
country to their side, and secure their continuance in power. 
Mr. Adams acted as the head of the nation, and not as the head 
of a party, and took the responsibility of saving his country from 
a war sure to be disastrous and possibly fatal to her, without 
consulting his Cabinet, or regarding the hostility of the Senate, 
or of the party at large. Tbe courage and firmness which he 
evinced at this most critical point of our history, though he thus 
forfeited the good opinion and good will of multitudes of old 
friends and former political associates, and in some degree em- 
bittered the long remainder of his life, are now fitly recognized 
by history, and his conduct in this difficult dilemma is accepted 
as the crowning act of his administration, and the fit rounding of 
his life-long career of public service. But it is not likely that 
any degree of unanimity between the head and the members of 
the Federal party could have saved it from dissolution. The 
time had come for the party of the old ideas to yield to the party 
of the new. It was the next step in the great succession of revo- 
lutions, none of which ever go backward. A reprieve for four 



62 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

years was all that victory itself could have won for it. Its ex- 
tinction was a moral and political necessity. The Federalists 
failed in a desperate and indefensible attempt to substitute Burr 
for the detested Jefferson in the choice between the two Demo- 
cratic candidates who had an equal number of votes in the Elec- 
toral College, and they never again recovered the control of the 
national government. Still, they counted in their ranks a great 
proportion of the wealthy, intelligent, and educated classes, and 
the moral influence of their resistance to the opinions and the 
policy of the opposite party was not without a modifying effect 
upon the one and the other. 

As a necessary consequence of the fall of Mr. Adams, the 
diplomatic career of his son, John Quiney Adams, came to an 
end for a season. He returned to America in 1801, established 
himself in Boston, and resumed the practice of the law. He was 
immediately placed in the State Senate, and when the election of 
1802 approached, the Federal managers conceived the idea, not 
unreasonably, that his name and reputation would secure his 
election to Congress over Dr. Eustis. The proposition was ac- 
cordingly made to him, but he positively refused to stand in Mr. 
Quincy's way. Mr. Quiney, however, would not stand in the 
way of the success of his party, if it could be gained by the sub- 
stitution of a more acceptable candidate in his place. So he 
absolutely declined being a candidate as against Mr. Adams, 
whose nomination was finally arranged. But the result did not 
answer the expectations of any of the parties to the transaction. 
For Dr. Eustis was chosen and Mr. Adams beaten, and that by 
rather more votes than Blr. Quiney had been two years before. 
Some portion of the disffxvor with which the father was regarded 
by many of the Federalists was doubtless visited upon the son, 
and made them cool in their support of him. He had also 
himself offended his party by proposing in the State Senate that 
a certain proportion of the Councillors, then chosen by the Legis- 
lature, should be given to the Democrats. This magnanimity 
did not commend itself, in those high party times, to men yet 
smarting under a national defeat, but who still retained the con- 
trol of their own State. Indeed, it was looked upon by many of 



ELECTED TO CONGRESS. 63 

them as an overture for Democratic grace and favor. Accord- 
ingly, when Mr. Adams was a candidate to fill a vacancy in the 
United States Senate, in February, 1803, against Colonel Timo- 
thy Pickering, whom his father had dismissed from the Secre- 
taryship of State, this same feeling of disapprobation and distrust 
nearly defeated him. He was finally elected, however, which 
left the candidateship for the House of Representatives open to 
Mr. Quincy, who prevailed over his old competitor by a good 
majority, in November, 1804. At the spring election of tliat 
year he had been placed in the State Senate, a promotion not 
undeserved by his long and patient service of his party, and, 
especially, by his handsome behavior in the matter of the nomi- 
nation of Mr. Adams two years before. Thus his first public 
position was in the Upper House of the State Legislature, without 
having passed through the usual probation in the lower branch. 

At the national election of November, 1804, when Mr. Quincy 
was chosen to Congress, Mr. Jefferson received the unexpected 
compliment of the vote of Massachusetts. Up to that year the 
State had chosen Presidential Electors through the Legislature, 
which had always been in the hands of the Federalists. The 
Democrats had all along demanded that the choice should be 
made by popular vote, and this year their importunity had so 
far prevailed that the General Court consented that the people 
should pass upon the question, but insisted that it should be 
done by " general ticket," which, it was thought, would insure 
the choice of Federal electors. To their great surprise, which 
was hardly greater than that of their antagonists, the Demo- 
cratic candidates prevailed. This was a cruel mortification to 
the Federalists of all shades of opinion, and none the less be- 
cause it was largely owing to their own divisions and over-confi- 
dence. The following letter from Mr. John Quincy Adams, who 
was then in full fellowship with the Federal party, was written 
on the occasion of this catastrophe. 

Mk. J. Q. Adams to Mr. Quincy. 

" Washington Citt, 4th December, 1804. 
"Dear Sir: — I received your favor of the 23d instant the even- 
ing before last, and am happy to find you enjoying so good spirits amid 



64 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the discomfiture of honest principles which has occurred in our good 
old parent Massachusetts. This event, though altogether unexpected 
to me, is easily accounted for after it has happened. I do not, how- 
ever, impute it to the measures adopted by the Legislature at their 
summer session. All I can believe on that subject is, that those meas- 
ures were not adequate to produce the good effects intended by them. 
They were good medicines rendered ineffectual by the patient's habit 
of body. 

" The causes which have produced the revolution in the politics of 
Massachusetts are many, — more than I have time to detail. But 
above all, — more than any Federalist I have seen or heard is willing 
to allow, — the want of union, and consequently of zeal among them- 
selves, is among the most potent of these causes, though of this we 
hear little or nothing. The Federalists differ among themselves upon 
muny fundamental points to such a degree that they cannot act with 
the vigor which concert always produces. Many of them are too 
much devoted to personal and selfish views to make any sacrifice to 
party purposes. Such men never can be of much use, and yet they 
are always heavy burdens upon the party with which they are associ- 
ated. In the days of Cato and Caesar, the men who had no affections 
but for their gardens and their statues and their palaces were des- 
tined to be vanquished, and were so. Our situation has many points 
of resemblance with that, and, though with much milder symptoms, 
we shall find the same virtues and vices characterize both the rival 
parties. Besides all this, the influence of Federalism must sink before 
the increasing popularity of Mr. Jefferson and his administration, — a 
popularity founded on the prosperity of the nation, which his blunders 
have not been able to counteract, and of which he has all the credit. 
The mischiefs of which his immoderate thirst for that popularity are 
laying the foundation, are not immediately perceived; their effects are 
not yet felt, and probably will not be felt during his life. His political 
persecutions, as they oppress only individuals, are not interesting to the 
mass of the people, and during the four years of his Presidency Fortune 
has taken a pleasure in making his greatest weaknesses and follies issue 
more successfully than if he had been inspired with the profoundest 
wisdom. How long this state of things will last, it is only in the hands 
of Providence to decide ; but while it does last, the Federalists must 
count upon being in a minority, and as the majority consists of men of 
violent temper and malignant passions, this minority will be as much 
persecuted and oppressed as they will dare, and as the people will 
countenance them in. 



ATTACKS THE SLAVE RATIO OF REPRESENTATION. 65 

" From this view of things I lament the change in Massachusetts, 
because it opens prospects of injustice and of corruption, the extent 
of which cannot be easily foreseen. But I lament it, as I lament the 
ravages of an earthquake or a hurricane, — as an evil which human wis- 
dom cannot avert, and which Heaven doubtless intends for wise though 
inscrutable purposes. In saying this I do not intend to express any- 
thing like despair of the public weal. There is but one set of princi- 
ples which appear to me applicable to all times and to all places, — to 
success or defeat, — to public or private life. In the steady pursuit of 
those principles, the rise and fall of parties or of nations ought no more 
to affect us, when we are ourselves involved in the issue, than when 
tbey are mere objects of philosophical contemplation. I have no 
duubt but that, sooner or later, new divisions of parties and new ob- 
jects of public interest will occur, upon which we may expect to share 
more of the public favor in continued efforts for the public interest. 

" I shall subscribe for you, according to your wish, to the National 
Intelligencer, which is something more than demi-official, — which con- 
tains the most important of the public documents, and the most accu- 
rate reports of the debates in the House of Representatives. Its can- 
dor and its falsehoods are moreover so perfectly characteristic of the 
system it supports, that an indifferent person of tolerable penetration 
might take the measure of our administration, heart and head, from 
this paper, as accurately as a profile may be taken by physiognotrace.* 

'* I have scarcely room to say how much I am yours, 

"J. Q. Adams." 

While a member of the Senate of Massachusetts, 1804-5, Mr. 
Quincy made his first public manifestation of that sense of the 
dangers with which slavery threatened the liberties of the na- 
tion, which informed so large a part of his public action from that 
time down to the end of his life. During his Senatorship at this 
time he principally distinguished himself by actively promoting a 
movement for eliminating from the national Constitution the clause 
permitting the Slave States to count three fifths of their slaves 
as a part of their basis of representation. Though he could not 
have fully foreseen the tyrannical power with which this clause 
of the Constitution was destined to invest a compact oligarchy- 
resting on the ownership of human beings, nor all the ills which 

• Or " physiognotype." The word is dubious in the origina. writing 



66 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

were to flow from it, still his moral and political pagacity dis- 
cerned that a harvest of evils was included in this germ of mis- 
chief, of which he showed that the first fruits had been already 
perceived in the defeat of Adams by Jefferson, and in the ascen- 
dency of the Democratic party in the country. " The Northern 
States must and will," said he, "keep up the struggle; and if 
gentlemen do not now agree with us, the time will come when all 
will concur in this common cause. On the adoption of this 
amendment the prosperity and the continuance of the Union de- 
pond." It is a curious fact in the natural history of parties, that 
tht prophetic instinct of the Democrats led nearly, if not quite, all 
of them to vote against this resolution, which was adopted by an 
almost strict party vote. So early did they begin to justify tiie 
taunt of John Randolph, inspired by the contempt the slavehold- 
ers always felt for their Northern tools, and which they did not 
take the trouble to conceal, — " Northern gentlemen think to 
govern us by our black slaves ; but, let me tell them, we intend 
to govern them by their white slaves ! " Perhaps there was no 
man who divined sooner, and indicated more clearly and more 
persistently, the fatal nature of slavery, and the necessity of in- 
stant and constant resistance to its aggressions, than Mr. Quincy. 
On this point he never wavered. During the calmest of the 
halcyon days of the " Era of Good Feeling," his prescient soul 
foreboded the coming storm. I well remember more than once 
during my boyhood being present at conversations between him- 
self and his friends, in which he spoke of the certainty of great 
convulsions in the future, to arise from this attempt to make a 
union out of parts which could not coalesce in the nature of 
things. " You and I may not live to see the day," he would say 
to his friends ; " but before that boy is off the stage, he will see 
this country torn in pieces by the fierce passions which are now 
sleeping ! " His friends would generally smile and shake the 
head, regarding him as a prophet of ill, and of ill that could 
never come to pass. Indeed, it was the earnestness of his con- 
victions on this point and cognate ones, and the strength of ex- 
pression with which he uttered them, that made his party friends 
rather afraid of him, and gave him the reputation of imprudence 



PEEPARATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 67 

and violence, — which is at once the proof and the penaUy of 
heing in advance of one's time, and which doubtless stood in the 
way of his higher poHtical advancement. He did, however, Hve 
to see the fulfilment of his prophecies, and with singular literal- 
ness, as we shall see by and by, and to rejoice to know that the 
storm which he had prognosticated with such assured certainty 
only cleared and purified the air, and destroyed nothing the de- 
struction of which was not a blessing. 

I This same winter he began to make his preparations for the 
new duties upon which he was about to enter, with characteristic 
zeal and industry. Of these he gives the following account : — 

" In consequence of my election as member of Congress, I began, 
on the 1st of January, 1805, a course of preparatory studies, having 
for their object a minute knowledge of American history and politics, 
especially that part of both comprised between the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution and that period. As this knowledge was only to 
be acquired by a recurrence to the debates, newspapers, temporary 
pamphlets, and official reports of the intervening years, I set myself at 
work immediately to examine and digest these documents, arranging 
them, and the principles and questions agitated in them, so that as far 
as possible I might obtain a command of all the topics which then or 
before had divided the American people. With this design I opened 
a folio commonplace-book, on John Locke's plan, embracing abstracts 
and researches into the history of the United States relative to all the 
topics I deemed it proper for me to understand, — a work which cost 
me no small labor. The scantiness of documents, and the difficulty 
then of obtaining them, made the procuring, analyzing, and abstracting 
them — from the minuteness required, and the little interest of their 
nature — irksome as well as laborious. Many things were inserted in 
that commonplace-book which I afterwards found to be of little use, or 
to be more fully acquired elsewhere. But the design was good and 
honorable, and I never regard well-directed labor as lost." 

As a part of his preparation for Congressional life, my father 
diligently applied himself to the study of the French language, 
of which he had already the smattering then, not to say now, 
thought sufficient for the occasions of a university education. 
In this he so far succeeded as to speak French well enough to 
converse easily with the foreign ministers, and other European 



68 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

visitors whom he met at Waslrington, who were not at home in 
English. The facility of speaking it he lost with the disuse of 
the habit after leaving Congress ; but he retained to the last the 
accurate knowledge of the language which comes of a thorough 
study of its principles and grammatical structure. In the year 
1805 he began keeping a copious diary, in which he recorded his 
studies, which were various in kind and surprising in amount, 
especially when we consider that he was an active member of 
the State Legislature, and much occupied with private affairs 
and the demands of society. Dinner-parties and visitors are 
constantly interrupting his studies. Besides records of conver- 
sations, which are only too few and brief, it contains remarks on 
the works of literature he was reading, with long extracts in 
English, Latin, and French. And this in addition to the dry and 
laborious researches of which I have already given his own ac- 
count. And besides these serious studies he appears to have 
amused himself with the pursuit of botany, from which, how- 
ever, he was soon driven by the exactions of politics. I will 
here insert a few extracts from this diary. 

" January 3. — In conversation with Theophilus Parsons on the 
strength of the prejudices of religious sectaries, he related this anec- 
dote. The disputes between the Calvinists and Arians ran high in 
Newburyport. Two of the former, men of excellent morals, — and, 
religious prejudices out of the question, of ordinary candor, — were 
conversing together concerning a neighbor who adhered to the latter 
doctrines. 'It is a strange thing,' said one, ' that a man so perverse in 
his doctrines should be so exemplary in his life.' ' I have often thought 
so,' said the other ; ' I have narrowly watched that man for ten years 
past, and it seems as if the very Devil helped him to he good ! ' " 

The next name in the diary will recall to the minds of many 
of my readers the image of the courteous, cheerful, lively gentle- 
man of the old school whose hospitalities they have enjoyed on 
the banks of the Kennebeck. Born in England about the mid- 
dle of the last century, the son of Samuel Vaughan (whom Junius 
has damned, I believe \ery unjustly, to everlasting fame), a pupil 
of Dr. Priestley, educated at Cambridge, Edinburgh, and the Inns 
of Court, the friend and editor of Franklin, the intimate of the 



PREPAUATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 69 

"Whig celebrities of the period of Burke and Fox, a member of 
Parliament, a voluntary exile from England at the time of Pitt's 
*' Reign of Terror" for his sympathy with the French Revolution, 
Benjamin Vaughan came to this country about 1795, and estab- 
lished himself at Hallowell, in Maine, then on the frontiers of 
civilization, created there an elegant and hospitable home, and 
drew around him a cultivated circle of society. The acquaint- 
ance the beginning of which is here set down ripened into a 
friendship which continued until the death of Mr. Vaughan, in 
1834. 

^'■January 5. — Benjamin Vaughan, Esq., of Hallowell, an English- 
man who has emigrated to this country on account of some political 
complications, passed the evening with me. His extensive reading 
and acquaintance with many of the present European actors on the 
political theatre, particularly those of the opposition, joined with a 
happy communicativeness of temper, render him a pleasing and in- 
structive companion. 

" He said that Swinburne, a celebrated traveller, had assured him 
that in Italy the thermometer had in one year at Rome stood for thir- 
teen days from three to five degrees below cipher of Fahrenheit. 
This fact he deemed important to show that the Italian climate had 
not ameliorated, as some had pretended, in modern times." 

^'■January 17. — In the evening, Vaughan at my house mentioned 
a fact relative to the state of Greek learning in France and England 
which surprised me. Just before the French Revolution, said Vaughan, 
the Archbishop of Toulouse informed me that the Greek language 
had gone much out of repute in France with literary men. He did 
not believe there were four noblemen in the kingdom who under- 
stood it. In England, said Vaughan, it was then and Is still considered 
an essential branch of education for the nobility, — many of them are 
very good Greek scholars." 

" April 23. — In conversation with Fisher Ames, — were speaking 
of the dispositions which made men the least manageable partisans. 
' It has long been my opinion,' said he, ' that of all passior ? vanity is 
the greatest corrupter of good dispositions. Others subside occasion- 
ally. Avarice sometimes sleeps. But vanity is a perpetual trade- 
wind, always moved by a single cause, and always setting one way.*" 

" June 29. — Dined at Mr. (Theodore) Lyman's. Ex-President 
John Adams went to town with me in my carriage. In course of con- 



70 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

versation Mr. Adams said : ' No writer has ever yet displayed all the 
terrors of democracy in our language. All the learned men in Europe 
have had an interest in throwing a veil over its enormities, as they have 
all felt the necessity of preserving a portion of its spirit in their con- 
stitutions. In the history of Naples and of the Italian republics the 
truest picture of its progress and fate is drawn.' Speaking concerning 
the merits of history, he said that it ever gave a poor representation 
of the causes of events and of the motives of the actors, and even of 
the most important agents in the revolutions of the world. History is 
always occupied about the painted head of the ship. It says nothing 
about the helmsman, or the common sailor, to whose skill and activity 
success is' really attributable. It is well known that, in the revolution 
of Holland, a private individual, whose name is scarcely remembered, 
did more towards exciting, and making it successful, than William the 
First. But William had fortune and military skill, was connected 
with one of the most influential families by marriage, and, wliat was 
of full as much consequence as all, he was of a noble family, with a 
title. 

" At dinner the conversation turned on Bonaparte and the proba- 
bility of his successful establishment of a new dynasty. Dr. Dexter 
thought that he would transmit the French empire to his family ; that " 
the French were tired of revolutions, and must have a master; and 
that the head of the army must be king. I controverted the prob- 
ability of the continuance of power in the Bonapartian race, because 
it was little likely that any of Bonaparte's brothers would be able to 
keep the army, who would always follow, in a military government, 
the actual and not the titular leader. 

" The dispute growing somewhat ardent, Adams interrupted us, 
saying : ' Dr. Dexter, you have certainly the Roman legions against 
you. This conversation, however, reminds me of an anecdote. About 
the time of the National Convention Dr. Priestley breakfasted with me. 
He was exulting at the prospect which the French had of now finally 
establishing their freedom. " But do you believe, Doctor, that liberty is 
now finally established, and that monarchy in some shape or other will 
not again be reinstated in France?" "Yes," said he. " And why?" 
" Why," replied the Doctor, " because I believe the French monarchy 
to be the tenth horn of the beast, mentioned in the Revelations, and 
that it has now fallen forever." Observing, I suppose, from my coun- 
tenance, that I was not altogether a convert to his opinion on that 
ground, after a moment's hesitation, he proceeded : " I confess, how- 
ever, I have had some doubts. No longer ago than yester lay I Avas 



PREPARATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 71 

reading the travels of a Frenchman in England, in the year 1658, — 
the year of Cromwell's death, and just before that event. The writer 
says that he finds considerable diversity of opinion in private circles 
concerning the merits and character of the Protector; but in one 
thing, says he, all men of all parlies and all characters are agreed^ — ■ 
that in no shape will monarchy be ever again reinstated in this island^ 
and above all, not in the ancient family ! " ' " 

One would think that the most scrupulous conscientiousness 
might have been satisfied with the abundant and various industry 
of which, as I have described it, ray father's diary is the record. 
It was not enough, however, to content his own, and lie more 
than once laments his " neglect of that moral and mental cultiva- 
tion " which he regards as " the noblest of human pursuits." And 
with most superfluous penitence, on one occasion he says : " I re- 
solve, therefore, in future to be more circumspect, — to hoard my 
moments with a more thrifty spirit — to listen less to the sugges- 
tions of indolence, and so quicken that spirit of intellectual im- 
provement to which I devote my life." And at a later date he 
thus laments over his shortcomings, in a spirit of most gratuitous 
self-reproach, inasmuch as it seems to spring from regret that he 
could not employ all his time in two different ways at once. 

" September 18, 1805. — Since the above, my studies have been pro- 
gressive, although this record has been stationary. I have maintained 
a regular course of pursuit, with aS^ little deviation as calls of duty or 
the interruptions of friendship would permit. The difficulty of ob- 
taining public documents in a successive series has made unavoidable 
a change in my original plan of political inquiry ; and the quick step 
with which the session is hastening upon me has made necessary a 
particular reference to such investigations as the state of present poli- 
tics made most imperiously requisite. To these objects the literary 
projects I had connected in my plan of study have been forced to yield. 
My botanical spirit has been permitted to rest, although Nature has 
solicited it with her later flowers. De Retz and the factions of the 
sixteenth century have been lost amid the nearer tumults of the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth. Even Shakespeare and Quinctilian have 
been forgotten under the pressure of incumbent and irksome re- 
searches. Among the filth of party newspapers and pamphlets I have 
been drawing forth minute but important facts, and extracting the 



72 LIFE OF JOSIAH QIJINCY. 

slight thread of a cobweb policy. The necessity to abstract, in order 
to preserve the result of my inquiries, has imposed much tedious labor, 
which has given me an apology for neglecting this short record." 

At length the time was at hand when he was to enter on his new 
career of Congressional life, and he made his serious preparations 
for the journey to Washington. It was no holiday excursion in 
those days before steam, before tolerable stage-coaches^, before 
passable roads, and before bridges. The taverns along the road 
were of a very indifferent description, even for that day, when the 
best city hostelries were the horror of civilized travellers. My 
mother used to describe the discomforts and the dangers evoMi of 
the journeys to Washington, as things to remember to the end of 
a long life. The accidents caused by the horrible condition of the 
roads, the distance from help in the solitary places through which 
the route mostly lay, the terrors of the ferry-boats on the rivers 
that had them, and the yet greater terrors of fording those that 
had them not, made those expeditions anytliing but i)leasurable 
to make or to remember. The universal nomadic public of the 
present day, when, as Thackeray says, " we no longer tiavel, 
we only arrive" can form but an inadequate notion of the weari- 
ness and the actual bodily suffering which their fathers endured 
in the pursuit of business or pleasure, stretched on the rack of 
the old-fashioned stage-coaches, and broken upon four wheels at 
once. If they could, they would be more patient than they are 
if they arrive in New York too late for dinner, after breakfasting 
in Boston, or are delayed more than two days in their flight from 
the Atlantic to the farthest Western frontier of civilization. We 
who have lived on the debatable ground between the old and 
the new, when steam had bridged the sounds and the rivers, and 
shortened by half the time and by more than half the fatigues 
of travel, yet remember enough of the former days to be able to 
say with authority that they were not better than these. But 
this chapter cannot be better ended than by Mr. Quincy's own 
account of his journey, and his arrangements for his first winter 
in Washington. He set out early in November, with his wife 
and eldest daughter, travelling in his own carriage, and was 
about a month on the I'oad, including short visits in New York, 



VISIT TO NEW HAVEN. 73 

Philadelphia, and Baltimore. He left a journal of a portion of 
his journey, and of his visit to New York, which is not without 
interest. It begins abruptly somewhere in Connecticut. 

" . . . . Having passed the Sabbath at Ashford, on the succeeding 
day we arrived at Hartford, and on the next at New Haven. Between 
these two capitals of Connecticut the distance is shortened by a turn- 
pike, but the beautiful scenery which distinguishes the other road, 
the pleasant villages and variegated landscapes, are exchanged for a 
dull monotony of oak-crowned hills and sheep-covered vales, almost 
without a single village, and for miles without a house to break the 
tiresome uniformity of this rustic scene. It was our lot, however, 
to find one object to interest and occupy our attention, in a French 
Creole lady from the West Indies, who, with her black female slave, 
unable to speak a word of English, was travelling under the guidance 
of a little boy to Middletown. We passed her in the neighborhood of 
Mendon, and her humble equipage overtook us, travelling slowly, at 
Ashford. She had just arrived from Martinique, travelling for health. 
She was emaciated and pale as the native hue of her cheeks would 
permit. She was ignorant of our climate as of our tongue, and in 
the beginning of November was travelling in our cold latitudes with 
little more than would have been comfortable in her tropical country. 
I furbished up the little French I had, and she received my clumsy 
otifering with a degree of rapture. She had been ten days in the 
country, and during all that time had not met with a single person 
whom she could make understand and supply her wants. During her 
journey she had been put to serious inconvenience through the impos- 
sibility of communicating her desires, and oftentimes had been de- 
nied what she knew she could have commanded, could she only have 
made herself understood. Her weak frame could no longer support 
her painful situation. She was seized with convulsions, and dropped 
down apparently lifeless on the floor. We had, however, the satisfac- 
tion of reviving her, and of offering her against the climate some 
supernumerary travelling-overcoats, and, taking her under our patron- 
age, we saw her safe within ten miles of Middletown, happy and com- 
paratively comfortable. To her name and real rank we are yet 
strangers. From circumstances, it was apparent that, if it was not 
elevated, it was not low. 

" At New Haven I found their Legislature in session, and had the 
good fortune to hear a debate which excited considerable local inter- 
est, and called into action the talents of some of their principal speak- 
4 



74 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ers. Daggett and Webster on one side, Griswold and Goddard on the 
other. Daggett was close and logical in argument, and occasionally 
threw out some scintillations of that native wit in which he is known 
to abound. His manner was nothing polished, and his language rather 
forcible than precise. Webster discovered general knowledge, but had 
neither from nature nor cultivation the qualities necessary for an inter- 
esting or powerful public speaker. Goddard was copious, correct, rich 
in the fountain, but neither easy nor graceful in the delivery of the 
stream of his eloquence. Griswold, however, made good the deficiency 
of the others in these respects. His person and action are formed to 
draw audience and attention. He was eloquent, ardent, and pathetic ; 
in his style, rather declamatory than didactic, and well qualified to 
impress a popular assembly. The United States, I think, cannot boast 
many, perhaps none, superior to Griswold in the grace and force of 
public speaking. 

" I passed the evening at Webster's, in company with Griswold, 
Goddard, and Pitkin, who is Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
and also lately elected a member of Congress. Mr. Backus, who is 
also one of the members, and first clerk of their House of Representa- 
tives (an office which is the first step to the chair of the House), was 
also one of the company. The conversation principally turned upon 
the political state of our country. From what passed I had more than 
ever cause to lament the loss of Mr. Griswold from the national legis- 
lature. At all times knowledge, experience, and talents such as he 
possesses are of the highest importance, but at present they seem to 
be almost indispensable. He assured me that Jefferson was Ms own 
minister ; that he was acted upon by none of the heads of depart- 
ments ; that a coolness, it was generally supposed, subsisted between 
Madison and the President, owing to the disapprobation which the 
former is known to entertain concerning some of JeflTerson's measures, 
particularly the multiplicity and nature of the removals from office. 
It was probably on account of this state of things between Mr. Madi- 
son and Mr. Jefferson, that the friends of the latter had already begun 
to turn their attention towards another than Mr. Madison as Mr. Jef- 
ferson's successor. Mr. Monroe was undoubtedly the person whom the 
President f^ivored. And to this predilection might be attributed the 
numerous important appointments with which Jefferson had success- 
ively invested him, — as missions to France, Spain, and England, al- 
most contemporaneously ; and all calculated to give him an uncom- 
mon elevation in the view of his party and of the people of the United 
States." 



CONNECTICUT FEDERALISTS. 75 

These Connecticut gentlemen, whose acquaintance my father 
made on this visit, were most of them important public men at 
that time and afterwards. Webster I take to have been Noah 
Webster, of lexicographic celebrity. David Daggett was a 
native of Massachusetts, born in 1764, graduating at New Haven 
in 1783, and a very eminent lawyer in that city. He was not in 
Congress with my father, but entered it as Senator in 1813, re- 
maining until 1819. He was afterwards a Justice and the Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut. He died in 1851, | 
in his eighty-seventh year. Roger Griswold, born in Lyme in 
Connecticut, 1762, graduated at New Haven in 1780, was an 
active member of Congress from 1795 to 1805. His transac- 
tions with Matthew Lyon I shall relate elsewhere. Later he was 
a Judge of the Supreme Court and Governor of Connecticut. 
He held this office at the breaking out of the war of 1812, and 
refused to comply with a requisition of President Madison for a 
militia force to replace the garrisons of regulars which had been 
sent to the frontier. This was on the ground that the Governor 
of a State had a concurrent jurisdiction, so to speak, with the 
President of the United States, over the militia, and might decide 
whether the emergency existed which would justify him in calling 
it out. He died in the course of the same year. Calvin Goddard 
was a native of Massachusetts, born in 1768, graduating at Dart- 
mouth College in 1786, and a member of Congress from 1801 to 
1805. He died at Norwich in 1842. Timothy Pitkin was born 
in Farmington, Connecticut, in 1765, graduated at New Haven, 
1785, and was a Representative in Congress from 1805 to 1819. 
He wrote some laborious statistical and historical works, and died 
in 1847, in his eighty-third year. My father and he were warm 
friends through life. I well remember a visit he and Judge Dag- 
gett paid my father at Cambridge one Commencement time, about 
1834 or 1835, and how the three old Federalists fought their bat- 
tles o'er again, and showed small mercy to Jefferson and Madison, 
their following and their works. 

During the few days my father stayed in New York he received 
much attention from the principal Federalists there, — such as 
Dr. Hosack, Dr. Harris, Colonel Fish, Judge Pendleton, William 



76 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Johnson, Jacob Lewis, Mr. Stuyvesant, Mr. Gracie, and Mr. 
Wolcott, besides his brothers-in-law Jacob and Washington Mor- 
ton. One of the topics of discussion among the>e gentlemen at 
their dinner-parties was, whether it were advisable to change the 
name of the Federal party, because of the ill odor into which it 
had fallen. Plappily the impossible and the absurd was never 
attempted. 

" Dined at Washington Morton's. Lewis in company. Speaking 
of John Randolph, member of Congress from Virginia, Lewis said 
that his (Randolph's) policy was unequivocally hostile to the commer- 
cial character of the United States, — that he made no hesitation in 
expressing his contempt of the carrying trade. One of the Leads of 
departments declared to me, said Lewis, that Randolph, in conversa- 
tion with him upon the carrying trade, expressed his unequivocal sen- 
timent that no discrimination ought to be made in favor of our own 
commerce and navigation, — that, in order to promote competition, 
our ports ought to be open to the ships of all nations. ' He who car- 
ries away the produce of my plantation,' said Randolph, 'is like him 
•who blacks my shoes ; so long as he does it in the best manner, and at 
the cheapest rate, I employ him ; but if another will do either upon 
more advantageous terms, be he foreigner or native, the other must 
and ought to lose his employment.' " 

Dr. Alexander Hosack, F. R. S., I need hardly say, was the 
eminent physician of the last generation, and father of the emi- 
nent surgeon of the same name of this. Colonel Nicholas Fish 
served in the Revolutionary army, and was one of the most emi- 
nent and honored citizens of his time. He was the father of Mr. 
Hamilton Fish, sometime Governor of New York. Nathaniel 
Pendleton was the second of Hamilton in his fetal duel with 
Burr, by which fact he is chiefly remembered now. He was a 
judge of some one of the inferior courts. William Johnson is 
well known to the legal profession by his Reports of the decis- 
ions of the highest courts of Common Law and of Efjuity of 
New York, in the golden days of Kent, Livingston, and Spencer. 
Commodore Jacob Lewis was a distinguished naval olhrer of the 
old school. Mr. Nicholas Stuyvesant and Mr. Archibald Gracie 
were gentlemen of wealth and high social position, as their names 
sufficiently indicate. Mr. Wolcott was, of course, the former 



JACOB AND WASHINGTON MORTON. 77 

Secretary of the Treasury, afterwards Governor of Connecticut, 
at that time the president of a bank in New York. 

My mother's brothers, Jacob and Washington Morton, were 
very well-known men to the New York of their day. The image 
of the former must still live in the memory of the elder and middle- 
aged portion of the inhabitants of that city. He was born in 
1761, and graduated at Princeton in 1778. He studied law, but 
was diverted from following up the profession by other employ- 
ments. For thirty years or more he was Major-General of the 
First Division of the State Militia of New York, until his death, 
in 1836, in his seventy-fourth year, when he was honored with a 
great military funeral. During the war of 1812 he was mus- 
tered into the service of the United States, and was appointed to 
the military command of the city of New York. He was the 
immediate predecessor of General Sandford, who has lately 
ended a term of service of about the same duration. Many cit- 
izens of New York will yet freshly remember the powdered 
head, erect carriage, alert air, and cordial manners of the kind- 
hearted and hospitable old General, — a gentleman in breeding 
as well as politics of the school of Washington, — who was as 
familiar in the eyes of the New York of thirty years since as the 
City Hall itself. And speaking of the City Hall, General Mor- 
ton held some place of trust and emolument there, under the city 
government, for many years ; and so strong was his hold upon the 
popular regard that no change in the political complexion of the 
municipal government disturbed his tenure of office. Though a 
Federalist of the deepest dye in the days when the old Democratic 
party came into power, and a pronounced Adams man during 
the excited canvass which resulted in the election of General 
Jackson to the Presidency, neither Democrats nor Jackson-men 
ventured to remove him. Perhaps they did not wish to do so. 
While other heads fell with small mercy under the knife of the 
political guillotine, his remained safe on his official shoulders 
until his natural death. 

His younger brother, Washington, was born in 1775, and grad- 
uated at Princeton in 1792. He was one of Nature's favorite 
Bons, and endowed by her with her best gifts of mind and body. 



78 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Splendidly handsome, of great bodily strength and athletic skill, 
he had also extraordinary powers of mind, from which his con- 
temporaries augured great success in life, and eminence in his 
profession of the law, — auguries which his early death disap- 
pointed of their entire fulfilment. But though not much past 
thirty when he died, and though perhaps more of his time was 
given to the pleasures of the world than to its affairs, he had won 
an honorable place at the bar of New York at that most brilliant 
period of its history when it bore upon its calendar such names 
as Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, John Wells, Samuel Jones, 
Thomas Addis Emmett, Rufus King, David B. Ogden, Peter A. 
Jay, and others of a national, some of them of a European, repu- 
tation. Of his physical powers of endurance and his love of 
athletic exercises he gave a proof, which made a great noise at 
the time, by walking for a wager from New York to Philadelphia 
in one day, then an unprecedented feat. His walk finished and 
his wager won, after a bath and toilet, as he told the story to my 
mother, he spent the night with his friends who had accompanied 
him on horseback, and a party of Pliiladelphia choice spirits, 
over a supper-table spread in his honor, at which we may well 
believe that the conviviality was answerable to the greatness of 
the occasion. 

Being such as I have described him, it is perhaps not surpris- 
ing, when he and the beautiful Cornelia Schuyler, daugliter of 
General Philip Schuyler of the Revolution, and younger sister of 
Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, were thrown together, that they should 
have fallen in love with one another. And perhaps, too, it was 
nothing strange that the cautious General should have hesitated 
before consenting to intrust his lovely child to the care of a vol- 
atile youth of two and twenty, who, however brilliant might be 
his prospects and his possibilities, had not yet slackened his pace 
to the sober rate befitting a steady-going married man. At any 
rate, he refused his consent to the match, and, exercising the 
paternal authority then his undisputed right, forbade all commu- 
nication between his daughter and her suitor. But my uncle 
"Washington was not a man to be turned from his purpose by an 
obstacle like this. Such an impediment might hinder the course 



WASHINGTON MORTON. 79 

of his true love from running smooth, but, far from staying, only 
made it run the faster. My readers must supply the intermedi- 
ate stages of this little romance from their own imaginations, but 
this was its conclusion. Late one night Washington Morton 
found himself in Albany, and under the window of the fair Corne- 
lia. At a signal, which I fear must have been preconcerted, the 
window opened, the young lady appeared, and presently leaped 
bravely from it into her lover's arms. Whatever may be thouglit 
of the prudence of this proceeding, the next step certainly showed 
that the pair were not wholly without discretion ; for they pro- 
ceeded in all haste, through the watches of the night, to Stock- 
bridge, in Massachusetts, thirty or forty miles away, to seek the 
counsel and countenance of Judge Theodore Sedgwick, who was 
the common and intimate friend of both their families. There 
they suddenly presented themselves to the eyes of that excellent 
magistrate, who was looking for anything rather than such an ap- 
parition, and told the story of their flight. Of course, there was 
but one thing to do. The parson was sent for, and the twain made 
one flesh with all convenient speed. It was a good while before 
General Schuyler could bring himself to forgive this escapade. 
But in time he was prevailed upon " to take up the mangled 
matter at the best," and to submit with as good a grace as he 
could muster to what he could not help. 

After the death of Cornelia Morton in 1807, her husband, to 
dissipate the passionate affliction in which he was plunged by it, 
went to Europe, and there died, at Paris, in 1810. A romantic 
story as to the object of his European visit and the manner of 
his death obtained a good deal of currency at the time, and may 
possibly yet linger among the traditions of winter-firesides. I 
was first told of it many years ago in a stage-coach in the State 
of New York, by a citizen of intelligence and respectability who 
had no suspicion that I was at all connected with its subject, as 
an unquestionable fact, and I afterwards learned, on inquiry, that 
it was extensively believed to be such. I am sorry to be obliged 
to spoil the story in advance by saying that it was certainly false 
in its most material circumstance, and that I have no doubt it was 
altogether a pure fabrication. Washington Morton was well 



80 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

known to have been nearly connected with General Hamilton 
by marriage, as well as his warm personal friend and ardent polit- 
ical admirer. The story ran that he went abroad with the de- 
liberate purpose of seeking Burr out, challenging him, and 
avenging the death of Hamilton with his own hand. It went 
on to say that he traced Burr to Paris, called him out, and they 
met on the field of honor. Unluckily, however, for the interests 
of poetical justice, instead of his killing Burr, Burr killed him ! 
And unfortunately for the story, it was contradicted by refractory 
facts, for Mr. Morton died very suddenly of some disease of the 
throat, of which event and all its details his family had the testi- 
mony of General Armstrong, then our Minister at Paris, and of 
other Americans residing there at the time. And it is not 
likely that he undertook his visit to Europe with any such 
truculent design. For if he had thought himself called upon 
to be the avenger of blood in the case of Hamilton, Wash- 
ington Morton was not the man to let the suns of six years 
go down upon his wrath before entering upon the office. But 
it is time to return to my father's account of his visit to New 
York. 

" 5//i. — Dined with General Jacob Morton. Jacob Lewis of the 
company. He was the commander of the celebrated St. Domingo 
fleet, and had great opportunities of forming correct opinions con- 
cerning the state of that island. The continuance of the government 
in the hands of the blacks he considered as chimerical. It was, un- 
doubtedly, the policy of the British government to get and maintain a 
footing in the island, either with a view of future perfect occupation, 
or to have it as an offset at the peace. For this reason they had al- 
ready taken possession of, and were fortifying themselves in, Jeremie 
and the Mole. ' The black Emperor,' Lewis said, ' had himself told 
him, that overtures for this purpose had been made to him by the 
British agent in behalf of his government, with a threat that, if he 
opposed or disquieted their possession, they would interdict all com- 
merce with that island, which was contraband. His fear of this had 
operated to keep him still as to this invasion of his territories. The 
ostensible reason for taking possession of it at present was to quiet 
the apprehensions of the inhabitants of Jamaica, who deemed their 
security hazarded by their proximity to this ferocious and lawless 
banditti. 



NEW YORK FEDERALISTS. 81 

" I asked Mr. Pendleton * whether, in the opinion of Mr. Hamil- 
ton's friends, Mr. Kingf had conducted with propriety in leaving New 
York, previous to the duel, after having been particularly consulted 
by Hamilton on the subject. Mr. Pendleton answered, 'that the 
facts were that Hamilton did consult King, and that early. He was 
that "judicious friend" of whom Hamilton speaks in one of his letters. 
After having thus been consulted some time previously to the time 
iixed for the duel. King commenced a journey. I know that this con- 
duct of King has been considered as indicating great coldness of heart 
in King. It certainly does nothing else. A man who had felt deeply 
the public and private stake which was put at risk, would not, it haa 
been said, have left the vicinity imtil the final decision, particularly 
after the marks of confidence he had received from Hamilton. On the 
contrary, Mr. King says he could have done nothing by staying, — that 
the duel was inevitable. From political considerations, he might wish 
to be at a distance from the scene.' " 

"8/^. — Returned Harris's, Stuyvesant's, and Colonel Fish's visits. 
Went with Dr. Hosack to view his botanic garden and greenhouse. 
It is onl}' the second year since its commencement, consequently the 
institution is but in an infant state. The greenhouse is twenty feet 
high and broad, sixty-three feet long. The whole number of acres 
destined for the establishment, twenty acres. His collections, consid- 
ering the time, numerous and various in species. 

" ^lli. — Dined with Mr. Gracie, at his country-seat, about eight 
miles from New York. Gracie is a merchant of eminence, a partic- 
ular friend of Mr. Wolcott, through his attachment to whom I am 
probably indebted for his politeness to me, — the dinner having been 
made particularly on my account. Wolcott's character of Gracie is, 
that he is one of the most excellent of the earth, — actively liberal, 
intelligent, seeking and rejoicing in occasions to do good. Certainly I 
have great reason to be grateful for this attention. His seat is upon 
the East River, opposite the famous pass called Hell Gate. The scene 
is beautiful beyond description. A deep, broad, rapid stream glances 
with an arrowy fleetness by the shore, hurrying along every species of 

* Pendleton was one of Hamilton's seconds. I was led to this inquiry be- 
cause a brother-in-law of mine, Washington Morton, who had married Miss 
Schuyler (sister of Mrs. Hamilton), a young man of strong passions, had spoken 
very indignantly of the conduct of King, giving the impression that such was 
the feeling of his wife's fiimily. 

t The celebrated Rufus King; graduated at Harvard University in 1777; Sen- 
ator from New York and Minister to England. Died in 1827. 

4* V 



82 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

vessel wliieli the extensive commerce of the country affords. The water, 
broken by the rocks which lie in the midst of the current, presents a 
continual scene of turbulent waves, dashing, foaming, and spending their 
force upon the rocks. The various courses every vessel has to shape, in 
order to escape from the dangers of the pass, present a constant change 
and novelty in this enchanting scene. The shores of Long Island, full 
of cultivated prospects, and interspersed with elegant country-seats, 
bound the distant view. The mansion-house is elegant, in the modern 
style, and the grounds laid out with taste in gardens. Judge Pen- 
dleton, Dr. Hosack, Mr. Wolcott, and Mr. Hopkins were of the party." 

Arrived at Washington, Mr. Quincy and his family took up 
their quarters in the house of Chief-Justice Cranch of the District 
Court, according to an arrangement entered into for the following 
reasons, as given by himself: — 

" Having ascertained the exceeding want of accommodation for a 
private family at Washington, then only in the sixth or seventh year 
of its existence, and the many difficulties of keeping house, and the 
utter discomfort and want of security from intrusion in the boarding- 
houses, I had made an arrangement with Judge Cranch to receive me 
and Mrs. Quincy, with one child, into his family, with sufficient ad- 
joining accommodation for my coachman, horses, and carriage, — an 
arrangement which in its result proved most happy and gratifying to 
me. Cranch was the son of Richard Cranch, of Quincy, in which 
town he was born and educated. His father was an early friend of 
my father, and of myself Judge Cranch himself was one of the 
most gentlemanly of men, and eminent for his private virtues and 
judicial knowledge. 

" Of the course of my life during this session I have few remem- 
brances. I had with me my wife and eldest child. My intercourse 
■with Judge Cranch and his family was the solace of my domestic 
hours, so far as their happiness depended on anything external to 
my own family. My Congressional friends were our frequent even- 
ing visitors, to whom the vivacity, intelligence, and cultivated mind 
and manners of my wife were never-failing attractions. She was 
soon visited by several ladies of Washington, with some of whom 
she afterwards formed interesting friendships. As for myself, my 
whole thoughts were absorbed in my public duties, the fulfilment of 
which constituted the constant endeavor and chief pleasure of my 
Ufe." 



THE NINTH CONGRESS. 83 



. CHAPTER V. 

1805-1807. 

The Ninth Congkess. — State of Affairs. — Mr. Quincy's Opinion of 
Mr. Jefferson. — Of the Purchase of Louisiana. — Mk. Merry's Re- 
ception BY Mu. Jefferson. — The Federalists and John Randolph. — 
The Non-Importation Act. — Speech on Coast Defence. — Abolition 
OF the Slave-Trade. — Life at Washington. 

THE moment when Mr. Quincy took his seat in the House of 
Representatives was a very critical one in regard both to 
the foreign and the domestic affairs of the United States. Mr. 
Jefferson was in the first year of his second term, and had an un- 
questionable and unquestioning majority in both houses at his 
beck. The Federalists were in a hopeless minority in Congress 
and in the nation. They had but seven Senators, counting John 
Quincy Adams, who soon went out from among them, and barely 
twenty-five members of the lower house. A majority even of 
the Massachusetts delegation (ten out of seventeen) were Demo- 
crats. Of course, all that the minority could do was to watch 
the Administration, to expose its shortcomings and excesses, to 
resist mischievous measures as well as they could, and record a 
protest against them when resistance was in vain. The adoption 
of the Federal Constitution was strictly contemporaneous with 
the beginning of the French Revolution, and from that time for- 
ward American politics had been profoundly influenced by those 
of Europe. In 1805, Bonaparte was in the midst of his porten- 
tous career of victory. His name was a word to conjure with on 
this side of the Atlantic, as well as on the other. His battles, 
w-hile they shook the continent of Europe, made that of America 
tremble also. The Democrats, who had hailed the French Revo- 
lution as the dawn of the political millennium, saluted Bonajiarte 
as its heir, and as the instrument appointed for the humiliation of 
crowned heads and the exaltation of the people. England they 



84 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

regarded as the voluntary cliampion of the ancient abuses, and 
the Federalists as in lull sympathy with her crusade against 
struggling liberty. The Federalists, on the other hand, who ab- 
horred the excesses attending the French Revolution, and looked 
upon Bonaparte as a monster of tyranny to whom that convulsion 
had gnen birth, considered England as the only hope of the 
world for checking his career of universal empire, in which he 
would accord to the United States only the boon of being de- 
voured the last. And many of them believed the Democrats to 
be ready to give up the independence of their country, and to sur- 
render it to the Corsican usurper as a virtual dependency, if not 
as an outlying department, of the French empire. For the quar- 
ter of a century between the breaking out of the French Revolu- 
tion and the Peace of 1815, the hopes and the fears, the passions 
and the politics of America, were indissolubly and inextricably- 
bound up with those of Europe. This fact supplies the key to 
much that may seem anomalous or enigmatical in the conduct of 
American parties during that period. 

The situation of public affairs at the opening of the Ninth 
Congress was substantially this. Bonaparte having sold Louisi- 
ana to the United States, in 1803, under circumstances the influ- 
ence of which has affected our whole subsequent history, the 
United States were in a state of quasi hostility with Spain, who 
did not see a possession so lately hers, and which slie had ceded 
back to France with no such idea, made over to a rapidly grow- 
ing Republic conterminous with her other North American pos- 
sessions. She had solemnly protested against the treaty of 1803 
at the time. Disputes as to boundaries were a fruitful cause of 
collision, and had led to the actual occupation by Spain of soil 
unquestionably within our frontiers. Irujo, the Spanish Minis- 
ter, had insulted our government in a manner which showed that 
Spain probably shared the opinion Talleyrand had expressed to 
the Directory as to the United States. The President, having 
taken offence at certain proceedings of his, asked his recall, and 
when the Secretary of State informed him that his continued 
presence in Washington was " dissatisfactory to the President," 
he coolly replied that he should stay as long as suited his conven- 



STATE OF AFFAIRS. 85 

ience, and, further, that he received no orders excepting from 
the king his master. This state of things certainly called for 
some military and naval preparation. But this was not all. Up 
to the year 1805, the United States had enjoyed a most lucrative 
carrying trade, being the only considerable neutral power during 
the wars carried on by and against Bonaparte. All the produc- 
tions of the colonies of France and Holland, and of Spain since 
lier accession to the French alliance, were first brought to some 
American port, and thence reshipped to the respective mother 
countries, giving double freights to the ship-owners. The British 
merchants did not look on this favor shown to American shipping 
with complacency, and the government also discovered that it 
gave to France the full benefit of the trade of her own colonies 
and those of her allies, in war almost as fully as in peace. The 
Courts of Admiralty, accordingly, reconsidered the old doctrines 
of international law, and confiscated several valuable cargoes, 
though protected by the American flag, on the ground that it 
was merely used to cover a fraudulent transaction, the property 
never having really belonged to the American merchant, having 
been landed in the neutral port merely to be reshipped to the 
hostile one. These decisions, which destroyed an immensely 
profitable business, caused great dissatisfaction in the commercial 
centres, and were the beginning of the unfriendly relations with 
England which at last ended in the war of 1812. And France 
and Spain, notwithstanding the advantages they derived from the 
neutral character of the United States, could not keep their 
hands off the rich prizes which came in the way of their cruisers, 
and which were taken on small pretexts, or simply robbed with- 
out any, and thus gave rise to most of those French and Spanish 
claims of which we have heard so much in later years. 

Mr. Jefferson, in his Message on the opening of Congress, in 
1805, drew attention to the aggressions of Spain, and to " the 
new principles interpolated into the law of nations " by Great 
Britain, and to the necessity of preparation to defend tlie rights 
of the nation in both cases. In his extreme fear of spending 
money, however, he limited his recommendation of defensive 
measures to the employment of gunboats for the defence of the 



86 LIFE OF JOSIAH QXnNCY. 

harbors, and to a classification of the militia, so that the youngei 
portion might be called into the field in case of emergency. The 
new policy of Great Britain was perplexing to the Federalists, 
not merely because the strength of the party lay in the commer- 
cial region, which was the one most immediately affected by it, 
but because it would be an occasion to the French party, as they 
esteemed the Democrats, to give more effectual help to the con- 
queror of Europe. It was a nice task to maintain the rights of 
neutral commerce against the new doctrines of England, and at 
the same time to do nothing to cripple her in her conflict with 
the common enemy of mankind, as they regarded Bonaparte. 
And the question grew more and more perplexing as the rela- 
tions of the three countries became more and more complicated 
as time went on. The state of Federal feeling on this subject 
may be gathered from the following extract from a letter of 
Fisher Ames, than whom there was no man more admired or 
revered by the Federalists, to Mr. Quincy, written just before 
the session, but received after it began. After speaking of the 
anxiety caused by the English confiscations, he goes on : — 

" I am very willing the British should turn out exceedingly in the 
wrong in regard to condemning our vessels when laden with colonial 
produce. If they are not in the wrong, I see not the policy or fitness 
of hazarding our commerce, peace, and prosperity on an untenable 
point. Force of guns is on their side. I would not voluntarily have 
the force of argument against us also. In case a candid examination 
should create many doubts of our assumed principles, as I think it will, 
■why should we make the retracting the contrary principles by England 
a sine qua non of our measures ? . . . . 

" To reduce France within moderate limits will require an age of 
battles, and England is alone possessed of the means, and forced to 
display the courage, to fight them with the necessary perseverance. 
1 expect reverses and disasters, and that Great Britain, now on the 
high horse, will dismount again. The time will come, therefore, when 
negotiation may eflfect much. Menace and the base hostility of con- 
fiscation (of debts) will surely prevent its being eflected. I could fill 
a dozen sheets with speculations, because I should deal in conjectures. 
I will spare you Why should one Yankee help another to guess V " * 

* Works of Fisher Ames, edited by his Son, Setli Ames, Vol. L p. 339. 



MR. QUmCY'S OPINION OF MR. JEFFERSON. 87 

The following are some passages from Mr. Quincy's answer to 
Mr. Ames : — 

" I will not anticipate your sentiments of the Message. Considering 
the rickety habits of our President, some think he shows great strength. 
I leave that to those who have andrometers graduated to his scale to 
decide ; my opinions relate only to particulars. The general char- 
acter of the man, or his speech, I have no concern with. There are 
points which demand our most solicitous attention, and on these I shall 
hereafter take occasion to give you mine, and ask for your thoughts. 
That which most interests me, because my constituents have the deep- 
est concern in it, relates to those ' new principles interpolated into the 
laws of nations.' This part of the Message has been referred to the 
Committee of Ways and Means, of which Randolph is chairman, and 
of which I have the honor to be a member. I know and feel the im- 
portance of the result, and my commercial friends may rely it shall not 
be a moment out of my thoughts. It is impossible for me to divine the 
deep mysteries of the President's policy. From an expression he used 
in conversation with me, I expected a much more direct and vindictive 
course than his Message contains. ' Great Britain,' said he, with an 
air indicative of much temper, ' has taken ground which I believe she 
means to keep, but which the United States never can concede.' 
Considering my path of politics was known to him, I expected he was 
preparing me, and those of my political sentiments, ibr some strong 
outline of conduct, which, however, it seems he has not had the bold- 
ness publicly to draw, but will leave his fancies to be put upon canvas 
by the Committee of Ways and Means. You know my situation in 
that committee, — of course in the minority." 

It appears from this letter that Mr. Quincy had waited person- 
ally upon Mr. Jefferson, — a visit of ceremony, doubtless, con- 
sidered as due to the head of the nation from all members of 
Congress. The opinion which he held, in common with all the 
Federalists, of that celebrated person, was such as to make him 
decline receiving any personal attentions from him, or holding 
any social intercourse with him. On this subject he speaks as 
follows : — 

" During my preparatory studies for public life I had imbibed an 
impression concerning Mr. Jefferson little less than antipathetic. I 
found that he had no sooner entered Washington's Cabinet, as Secre- 
tary of State, than he commenced insidious attacks upon the leaders 



88 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

of the Federal party, — particularly upon Adams and Hamilton. To 
the former he well knew he had been selected as the rival for the suc- 
cessorship of Washington. The great and overwhelming talents of 
the latter he both envied and feared. He began at the same period 
to assail the whole Federal party, calling them ' Tories,' ' enemies of 
republicanism,' ' British partisans,' and charged them with being actu- 
ated by a settled design to change the Federal Constitution into a 
monarchy. It was well known that, from the first, his language and 
letters contained unceasing charges of this kind against that whole 
party ; at the same time, as said Hamilton, ' he arraigned to every 
man that approached him the principal measures of government with 
undue warmth.' Nor did he fail to insinuate against such men as 
Adams, Jay, Hamilton, Knox, and many others, the design of intro- 
ducing changes into the government of this country, and making way 
for a king, lords, and commons! Calumnies false, injurious, and ab- 
surd, for there was no material out of which such a form of govern- 
ment could have been wrought. Yet were they the subject of his 
open conversation, of his private letters, and, as often as he dared, in 
the public prints. His assiduity in this course was apparent and un- 
disguised, the end he had in view plain, and the object and result in 
his own elevation undeniable. I regarded him, in respect of Wash- 
ington's administration, and indeed of the Federal party, as a snake 
in the grass, — the more dangerous from the oily, wily language with 
■which he lubricated his victims and applied his venom, — the more se- 
ductive and influential from the hollow pretences of respect, and, in 
regard to Adams, even of afiection, with which he accompanied them. 
" I came to Washington with an abhorrence of Jefferson's political 
character. I had no desire to make my course upward in political life, 
and holding my public station only as a means and opportunity of 
serving my country, with no wish or intention of continuing in it one 
moment longer than it was the unsolicited wish of my fellow-citizens, 
I had not the usual motives of public men to seek the friendship and 
favor of men in power. I therefore declined several invitations to 
dine at the White House, which, with some Congressional demonstra- 
tions of mine, made Mr. Jefferson understand that I had no wish for 
their renewal. The developments which subsequent years have made 
of his course and language at that period amply justify those fetlings, 
if they do not my mode of expressing them. The Federal party have 
of late years received a full answer to the prayer of Job, ' O that mine 
enemy had written a book ! ' This Jefferson has done, and Henry G. 
Randall has published it. A memoir more suicidal of character was 



OF THE PUECHASE OF LOUISIANA. 89 

never written, nor one which established by more unquestionable evi- 
dence every ill opinion previously entertained of its subject. It will 
have its effect, all the efibrts of the biographer to whitewash the char- 
acter of Jefierson, and to support his calumnies, to the contrary not- 
withstanding." 

There is no part of Mr. Quincy's public life which has been 
the occasion of more comment and more censure than his course, 
in 1811, in relation to the erection of Louisiana into a State. 
As his motives and conduct have been very extensively misrep- 
resented and misunderstood, it may be well to give in this place 
his own account, in his own words, of his views as to the man- 
ner in which the original purchase was made. At this distance 
of time, removed from the influence of contemporary passions, I 
believe that the impartial judgment of the present day will pro- 
nounce his opinions and conduct those of a sagacious and far-see- 
ing statesman, and not of a headstrong and violent partisan. If 
ever prophecies were answered by events, all his predictions of 
the mischiefs sure to follow from that coup d'etat have been ful- 
filled, and more than fulfilled, to the letter. 

" Another act of his administration had filled me with inexpressible 
disgust and apprehension. The purchase of Louisiana was wise and 
popular in view of the danger that then seemed threatening. An ap- 
prehension prevailed that Bonaparte had compelled Spain to transfer 
Louisiana to him, he intending to plant a French colony there. It was 
believed that the troops he had sent to St. Domingo were destined for 
New Orleans when they had done their work in that island. Then 
the people of the Western States were clamorous for the free opening 
of the Mississippi. These circumstances gave general interest and 
importance to the purchase. Had Jeflerson confined his policy to 
that object, it would have received the approbation even of the North- 
ern States. But he coupled it with a design insidious and unprinci- 
pled. The clause in the Constitution giving the power to Congress to 
admit into the Union other States, had unquestionably sole reference 
to the admission of States within the limits of the original territory of 
the United States. No original document, argument, or treatise, at 
the time of the formation of the Constitution, can be adduced to give 
color to the opinion that it was intended to extend to territories then 
belonging to foreign powers, beyond the limits of the original thirteen 
States. Mr. Jefferson himself was so convinced of this fact, that he 



90 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

declared, pievious to the purchase of Louisiana, that it could not be 
done except by receiving the sanction of the several States, without 
a violation of the Constitution. 

" In a letter to Mr. Breckenridge, dated Monticello, August 1 2, 
1802, Mr. Jefferson writes: 'The treaty (for the purchase of Loui- 
siana) must of course be laid before both Houses. They, I presume, 
will see their duty to the country in ratifying and paying for it. But 
I suppose they must then appeal to the nation for an additional article 
in the Constitution, approving and confirming an act which the nation 
had not previously authorized. The Constitution has made no provis- 
ion for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign 
nations into our Union.' 

" After this statement, and declaring that the Executive, for the 
good of his country, had done an act beyond the Constitution, he 
seriously advises that the Legislature should cast behind them meta- 
physical subtilties, violate the Constitution and their oaths, and do a 
thing wholly unauthorized. He likened the act to the case of a guard- 
ian making an investment for a minor, without authority, for the good 
of the minor, which he might alter when he came of age ; concealing 
the utter inapplicability of the case to the proposed assumption of 
power. For here the minors were of full age. The people of the 
United States might have had a voice in the question, and the deed 
thus perpetrated was final, and they never could have an opportunity 
to disavow it. 

" In a letter to Levi Lincoln, August 30, 1803, after his opinion on 
the constitutionality of admitting Louisiana had been publicly avowed; 
he says : ' The less that hi said about any Constitutional difficulty, the bet- 
ter. Congress should do what is necessary in silence. I find but one 
opinion as to the necessity of shutting up the Constitution for some 
time.' On the same page, in a letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, he 
recommends, ' Whatever Congress do, as it respects the Constitutional 
difficulty, should be done with as little debate as possible.' See Jef- 
ferson's Writings, published by T. Jefferson Randolph, Vol. HI. p. 
512, Vol. IV. p. 2; also the edition published by order of Congress by 
H. A. Washington, 1854, Vol. IV. pp. 500, 504, 505. 

" Notwithstanding the perfect conviction of his own mind on this 
point, as he unequivocally declared, (a fact well known at that time, 
and subsequently publicly demonstrated,) he yielded to the solicita- 
tions and influence of his partisans, silenced his conscientious scruples, 
and, holding in his hand the omnipotence of the present party power, 
consented to give his sanction to the violation of the Constitution by 



OF THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. 91 

admitting Louisiana into the Union without receiving or asking the 
consent of the several States. 

" By this act, as was then foreseen, and the result has proved, Jef- 
ferson unsettled and spread the whole foundations of the Union, as 
established by the original Constitution of the United States, intro- 
duced a population alien to it in every element of character, previous | 
education, and political tendency. Had his policy terminated with 
this result, it would have been sufficiently unprincipled, though less 
injurious ; but it was far-reaching into the future, and in its effects on 
the destinies of the Union. It was obvious that an appeal to the Free '■ 
States might be safely made with regard to the admission of Louisiana, 
the apprehension concerning the ulterior views of Bonaparte, and the 
wish to obtain the free navigation of the Mississippi, were so universal. 

" The policy of Jefferson was not, therefore, adopted from fear of a 
rejection of the proposition for the admission of Louisiana by the 
States, but he and the Slave States foresaw that, by seizing the oppor- 
tunity which they then had, and assuming at once that the Constitution 
gave Congress authority to multiply States in foreign territories, they 
would put an end forever to the necessity of applying to the States for 
such power in future. They foresaw that the territories thus conjoined 
would open the opportunity and power of multiplying Slave States, for 
which their climate was adapted, and thus effecting additional weight 
and ultimate predominancy to the slave power in the Union. To this 
end the assumption was made, and the subsequent history of the Union 
is but one tissue of evidence of its nature and consequences." 

This strong disapprobation of Mr. Jefferson as a public man, 
which Mr. Quincy shared with the whole Federal party, was 
made yet more intense by the fears and hopes which agitated the 
public mind as the great European contest went on. Mr. Jeffer- 
son had made no secret of his sympathy with France, as against 
England, from the beginning of the French Revolution. He was 
a witness of its earlier scenes from his post at Paris as Minister 
from the United States, and had given it his counsels as well as 
his good wishes. It is believed, I am not sure on what authority, 
that it was he that suggested the name of " National Assembly " 
to the Abbe Sieyes, when the States General transformed itself 
from a constitutional into a revolutionary body. The sympathies 
of the entire American people were at first with the Revolution ; 
and those of the younger and more hopeful, and such as had the 



92 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

least to lose, remained unchanged in spite of the Reign of Terror 
and of the insolences of the Directory to their own country. The 
elder and graver classes, the wealthy and the educated, looked 
upon the French Revolution with horror and dread. The same 
differences of temperament, condition, and character influenced 
the feelings of these classes respectively towards England. The 
former yet remembered bitterly against England the exasperations 
of our Revolutionary war, while they gratefully recalled the aid, 
so essential to its successful issue, which the French alliance had 
lent to our arms. And of later years, while the demeanor of the 
Directory towards the country had been insolent and offensive, 
the conduct of England had been far from conciliatory or friend- 
ly. By means of these passions, skilfully managed and worked 
upon, Mr. Jefferson had raised himself to the Presidency. 

Of one of his ways of manifesting his English antipathies, Mr. 
Quincy's journal gives a curious account. Among the acquaint- 
ances he formed during his first winter in Washington was that 
of Mr. Merry, the English Minister. This gentleman gave him 
an account of the way in which lie was treated by Mr. Jefferson 
at the time of his official reception. As my father wrote down 
Mr. Merry's story at the time, it is probably the most correct ac- 
count that has been given of that remarkable transaction. 

^'■Januarn, 1806. — The British Minister, Merry, in conversation 
with me in January, 1806, spoke with great asperity of the treatment, 
amounting to studied incivility, which he had received from President 
Jefferson from the first moment of his presenting his credentials as 
Minister, and which he considered as political and designed. As an 
evidence of the ground of this opinion, he stated tlie following facts. 
' On presenting my credentials,' said he, ' I asked Mr. Madison, the 
Secretary of State, at what time it would be convenient for him to 
introduce me officially to President Jefferson. Madison replied that 
he would consult Mr. Jefferson, and would inform me of his determi- 
nation. Accordingly, Madison soon after informed me of the day and 
hour appointed for my formal introduction, and on that day and hour 
I called on Mr. Madison, who accompanied me officially to inti-oduce 
me to the President. We went together to the mansion-house, I 
being in full official costume, as the etiquette of my place required 
on such a formal introduction of a Minister from Great Britain to 



THE F.7'.DERALISTS AND JOHN RANDOLPH. 93 

the President of the United States. On arriving at the hall of audi- 
ence, we found it empty, at which Mr. Madison seemed surprised, and 
proceeded to an entry leading to the President's study. I followed 
him, supposing he introduction was to take place in the adjoining 
room. At this' moment Mr. Jefferson entered the entry at the other 
end, and all tVee of us were packed in this narrow space, from which, 
to make room, I was obliged to back out. In this awkward position 
my introducti'm to the President was made by Mr. Madison. Mr. 
Jefferson's appearance soon explained to me that the general cir- 
cumstances of my reception had not been accidental, but studied. I, 
in my official ^:;ostume, found myself, at the hour of reception he had 
himself appoiiT.ed, introduced to a man as the President of the United 
States, not r erely in an undress, but actually standing in slippers down 
at the heels,',:nd both pantaloons, coat, and under-clothes indicative of 
utter slovenliness and indifference to appearances, and in a state of neg- 
ligence actually studied. I could not doubt that the whole scene was 
prepared and intended as an insult, not to me personally, but to the 
sovereign I represented.' 

" This occurrence, with others of a similar nature, were topics of 
common conversation in Washington, and received by the opponents 
of Mr. Jefferson with contempt and disgust, as evidence of his desire to 
avail himself of a vulgar popularity, and by his friends with applause, 
as proofs of the republicanism of his spirit and his independence of 
British influence. In dress, conversation, and demeanor he studiously 
sought and displayed the arts of a low demagogue seeking the gratifi- 
cation of the democracy on whose voices and votes he laid the foun- 
dation of his power." 

The Federal party, as I have already said, was in a hopeless 
and helpless minority of twenty -five, in a house of a hundred and 
forty members. Besides this small opposition of principle, there 
was a small faction of Democrats called " quids " in the slang of 
the day, who had quarrelled with Jefi'erson over the spoils of vic- 
tory. It was small, and derived all the importance it had from 
its leader, John Randolph of Roanoke, as he styled himself, whose 
wit, talent as a debater, insolence, and unbridled license of tongue 
made him a thorn in the side of the party he had left. He was 
a Virginian and only a Virginian, of the narrowest sectional feel- 
ings and prejudices, who often acted with the Federalists when 
he could thus best thwart or annoy his enemy. It is said that he 



94 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. )• 

parted company with Mr. Jefferson because helhaJ been refused 
a foreign mission on which he had set his heart. If this were 
true, surely the most determined of Mr. Jeffei son's unfriends 
could not include that action of his within the scope of their cen- 
sures. The Federalists, by agreement among thfimselves, ab- 
stained from making any party demonstrations of their own, arid 
contented themselves with following the lead of Randolph. This 
policy did not suit the quality of Mr. Quincy's tepiper or mind, 
and he resisted it, at the time it was under consideration, as being 
virtually political suicide. A party that refused to^ct as a party 
was to all intents and purposes dead. And though lit might be 
merely sleeping, its sleep was virtual death, and its sV^-ength was 
more likely to be lessened than increased by such a lethargy. 
I>eing the youngest member of the party, he could not presume 
to refuse obedience to the decision of the majority, when his ar- 
guments and protestations were of no avail. He adhered to the 
policy thus laid down for that session, but did not feel himself 
bound to conform to it after he felt more at home in the business 
of the House. As to Randolph he says : — 

" I had no predilection for John Randolph, and liked not the idea 
of taking a man so fickle, wayward, and overbearing as a sort of leader. 
However, I acceded to the policy of my friends during the first session, 
and was true to it. The first struggle was to get INIacon of North Caro- 
lina, one of Randolph's friends, into the Speaker's chair, which was 
effected with some difficulty, to his great joy and the annojance of 
the friends of the Administration. Macon immediately appointed 
Randolph Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, for which 
place, had Jefferson's friends been successful, they had selected Barna- 
bas Bidwell of Massachusetts. I was placed upon the same committee, 
which gave me an opportunity of a personal acquaintance with Ran- 
dolph, which resulted in as much intimacy as was practicable between 
me and a Southern man, haughty and wedded to Southern supremacy, 
and who made no concealment of his want of general sympathy for 
Northern men and Northern interests. Towards me personally his 
manners were polite in the extreme, and during our whole political 
hfe nothing ever occurred between us which was not of the most 
agreeable and friendly character. Our general views concerning Jef- 
ferson and his party were, for the most part, coincident, and in debate 
we seldom came in collision." 



BARNABAS BIDWELL. 95 

Barnabas Bidwell entered Congress at this session for the first 
time, and sat for but one term. He graduated at Yale College 
in 1785, and was a lawyer in the western part of Massachusetts. 
He had been a very active Democratic politician, and brought a 
very high reputation with him to Washington, and his advent 
•was hailed by the Jeffersonians as that of a great accession of 
strength to their party. Randolph was especially curious to 
know what manner of man this new antagonist might be, of whose 
prowess such tales were told. Accordingly, on the occasion of 
Bidwell's maiden speech, as my father used to tell the story, 
Randolph was in his place, which commanded that of the new 
member, and gave him a profound attention. But, as has often 
happened before, the performance of the new actor did not come 
up to the expectations excited by the flourish of trumpets which 
had announced his entrance upon the scene, Mr. Bidwell, 
though undoubtedly a man of ability in some sort, was not an 
orator, as Randolph was, but dull and heavy, both in matter and 
manner. Randolph soon made up his mind about him, and took 
a characteristic way of letting the House know his opinion. He 
was dressed in his usual morning costume, — his skeleton legs 
cased in tight-fitting leather breeches and top-boots, with a blue 
riding-coat, and the thick buckskin gloves from which he was 
never parted, and a heavily loaded riding-whip in his hand. 
After listening attentively for about a quarter of an hour, he rose 
deliberately, settled his hat on his head, and walked slowly out 
of the House, striking the handle of his whip emphatically upon 
the palm of his left hand, and regarding poor Bidwell as he 
passed him with a look of insolent contempt, as much as to say, 
"I have taken your measure, sir, and shall give myself no fur- 
ther concern about you!" It helped to extinguish effectually 
the new light from which the Administration had hoped so much. 
Mr. Bidwell acquired no weight in the House, and left Congress 
at the end of his term, in 1807, and took the office of Attorney- 
General of Massachusetts, which he held until 1810. At that 
time some financial catastrophe overtook him which rendered his 
emigration to Canada convenient, if not necessary. There he 
lived until his death in 1833. His son, of the same name, at- 



96 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

tained considerable provincial distinction, and was at one time, it 
I am not mistaken, Speaker of the lower House of the Parliament 
of U[)per Canada. 

The Hr?:t <run, so to speak, of Jefferson's war of commercial re- 
strictions against England was fired at this session, or at least 
loaded and aimed ready to fire. It was a law prohibiting the im- 
portation from Great Britain or her dependencies of certain arti- 
cles, comprising those which were the chief objects of English 
commerce. To give England time, however, to repent and avoid 
this penalty of her misdeeds, the prohibition was not to take 
effect until the next November. This measure the Federalists 
regarded as one looking towards war, and they deemed that no 
time should be lost in making some effectual preparation for such 
a contingency, should it occur. The practical question, therefore, 
which divided Congress at this time, was that of the fortification 
of the Atlantic cities. In view of the uncertain state of our re- 
lations with Spain and England, those cities felt a natural uneasi- 
ness at the unprotected condition in which a sudden war would 
find them. As they supplied, through the revenue afforded by 
their trade, all the means of the government, they thought it rea- 
sonable that a fair proportion of the funds they furnished should 
be applied to their own protection. This reasonable expectation 
the Southern and Western members were very ill disposed to 
meet. They were remote from the coast, their farms and planta- 
tions were secure from invasion, they felt the ignorant prejudice 
common to imperfect stages of civilization against commerce, and 
their sectional jealousies were made more bitter by the sight of 
the growing wealth of the commercial cities. While they were 
perfectly willing that those cities should pay the expenses of gov- 
ernment, and furnish the credit which enabled it to raise fifteen 
millions of dollars wherewith to buy Louisiana, and two millions 
to be used in secret service for the acquisition of the Floridas, 
they grudged the smallest appropriation for their defence. Dur- 
ing the seventeen years since the establishment of the govern- 
ment, only seven hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars had 
been appropriated for the fortification of the nine chief Atlantic 
cities ! No apprehensions of expense deterred the frugal JefFer- 



SPEECH ON COAST DEFENCE. 97 

son and his Southern and Southwestern supporters, together with 
their faithful retinue of Northern Democrats, from incurring debt 
or appropriating revenue for whatever looked to the safety or 
prosperity of the interior. At this very session appropriations 
for the extinguishing of Indian titles for the advantage of the 
Southwest had been made to the amount of four hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars ; while one hundred and fifty thousand was 
all that Congress was willing to expend for the defence of New 
York, "worth," as Mr. Quincy truly said, "forty Louisianas." 
A motion to increase the amount to five hundred thousand was 
treated with ridicule, and received only twenty-seven votes. 
Randolph, whose lead the Federalists had thought it expedient 
to follow in his general opposition to Jefferson, had no disposi- 
tion to do anything to aid the North. The man whose prejudices 
against manufactures were so strong that he averred he would 
go a mile out of his way at any time " to kick a sheep," had as 
little love for commerce, and the Federalists had no help from him. 
A few gunboats to lie in wait for the enemy behind the head- 
lands, and a few cannon to be run down to exposed points on 
the approach of danger, and worked by militia-men taken from 
the plough and the work-bench, were all that was thought ne- 
cessary to guard the coasts and protect the great marts of trade. 
It was on this matter that Mr. Quincy made his first important 
speech, April loth, 1806. A few extracts will give some notion 
of the force and good temper with wdiich he urged the points at 
which I have just glanced, and the tone of the conclusion is not 
without " something of prophetic strain." 

"Mr. Chairman: — Gentlemen seem disposed to treat this subject 
lightly, and to indulge themselves in pleasantries, on a question very 
serious to the commercial cities and to the interest of those who inhabit 
them. It may be sport to you, gentlemen, but it is death to us. How- 
evei- well disposed a majority of this House may be to treat this bill 
ludicrously, it will fill great and influential portions of this nation with 
very different sentiments. Men who have all that human nature holds 
dear, friends, fortunes, and families, concentrated in one single spot, 
on the sea-coast, and that spot exposed every moment to be plundered 
and desolated, will not highly relish or prize at an extreme value the 
■wit or the levity with which this House seems inchned to treat the 
5 Q 



98 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

dangers which threaten them, and which are sources to them of great 
and just apprehensions 

" With respect to the general utility of fortifications, I ask. By whom 
is it denied ? By men interested in that species of defence ? By the 
inhabitants of cities ? By those the necessity of whose situation has 
turned their attention to the nature of fortifications and their eflicacy ? 
No, sir ; these men solicit them. They are anxious for nothing so much. 
They tell you the safety of all they hold dear, their wives, their chil- 
dren, their fortunes and lives, are staked upon your decision. They 
do not so much ask for fortifications as a favor, as claim them as 
a right. They demand them. Who are they, then, that deny their 
utility ? Why, men from the interior. Men who, in one breath, tell 
you they know nothing about the subject, and in the next pass judg- 
ment against the adoption of any measures of defence. It is true, sir, 
to men who inhabit the White Hills of New Hampshire, or the Blue 
Ridge of Virginia, nothing can appear more absolutely useless than 
appropriations for the defence of the sea-coast. In this, as in all other 
cases, men reason very coolly and philosophically concerning dangers 
to which they are not themselves subject. All men, for the most part, 
bear with wonderful composure the misfortunes of other people. And, 
if called to contribute to their relief, they are sure to find, in the cold 
suggestions of economy, apologies enough for failure in their social 
duties 

"It is impossible to form a just estimate of our obligations to defend 
the commercial cities, without having a right idea of the nature and 
importance of commerce to the Eastern States, and attaining a just 
apprehension of its influence over every class of citizens in that quarter 
of the Union. From what has fallen from various gentlemen in the 
House, it is very apparent that they do not appreciate either its nature, 
its power, or the duties which result from our relation to those who are 
engaged in that pursuit. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. J. Ran- 
dolph) told us the other day, that ' the United States was a great land 
animal, — a great mammoth, which ought to cleave to the land, and 
not wade out into the ocean to fight the shark.' Sir, the figure is very 
happy so far as relates to that quarter of the Union with wliich that 
gentleman is chiefly conversant. Of the Southern States, the mam- 
moth is a correct type. But I ask, sir, suppose the mammoth has made 
a league with the cod, and that the cod, enterprising, active, and skilful, 
spreads himself over every ocean, and brings back the tribute of all 
climes to the feet of the mammoth ; suppose lie thereby enables the 
unwieldy animal to stretch his huge limbs upon cotton, or to rub his 



SPEECH ON COAST DEFENCE. 99 

fat sides along his tobacco plantations, zvilhout paying the tithe of a 
hair, in such case, is it wise, is it honorable, is it politic, for that 
mammoth, because by mere beef and bone he outweighs the cod in 
the political scale, to refuse a portion of that revenue which the indus- 
try of the cod annually produces to defend him in his natui'al ele- 
ment, if not against the great leviathan of the deep, at least against the 
petty pikes which prowl on the ocean, and if not in the whole course 
of his adventurous progress, at least in his native bays and harbors, 
•where his hopes and wealth are deposited, and where his species con- 
gi'egate ? 

" Other gentlemen have shown an equal want of a just apprehen- 
sion of the nature and effects of commerce. Some think any of its 
great channels can be impeded or cut off without important injury. 
Others, that it is a matter of so much indifference, that we can very 
well do without it. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smilie) 
told us some days since, ' that for his part he icished that at the time of 
our Revolution there had been no commerce.^ That honorable gentleman, 
I presume, is enamored with Arcadian scenes, with happy valleys. 
Like a hero of jmstoral romance at the head of some murmuring 
stream, with his crook by his side, his sheep feeding around, far from 
the temptations, unseduced by the luxuries of commerce, he would 

' . . . . sport with Amaryllis in the shade. 
Or with the tangles of Necera's hair.' 

I will not deny that these are pleasant scenes. Doubtless they are well 
suited to the innocence, the purity, and the amiable, unobtrusive sim- 
plicity of that gentleman's mind and manners. But he must not 
expect that all men can be measured by his elevated standard, or be 
made to relish these sublime pleasures. Thousands and ten thousands 
in that part of the country I would represent have no notion of rural 
felicity, or of the tranquil joys of the country. They love a life of 
activity, of enterprise and hazard. They would rather see a boat-hook 
than all the crooks in the world ; and as for sheep, they never desire 
to see anything more of them than just enough upon their deck to 
give them fresh meat once a week in a voj'age. Concerning the land 
of which the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. J. Randolph), and the one 
from North Carolina (Mr. Macon), think so much, they think very lit- 
tle. It is, in fact, to them only a shelter from the storm, — a perch on 
which they build their eyry and hide their mate and their young, while 

they skim the surface or hunt in the deep 

" Every year we get together on this floor to consult concerning the 
public good. The state of commerce makes a capital object in all our 



100 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

deliberations. We liave our committee of commerce and manufac- 
tures, and a great part of every session is exhausted in discufising their 
provisions, limitations, and restrictions, until at last we slide into the 
belief that commerce is of our creation ; that it has its root in the 
statute-book ; that its sap is drawn from our parchment, and that it 
spreads and flourishes under the direct heat of the legislative ray. 
But what is the fact ? Look into your laws. What are they ? Nine 
tenths — I should speak nearer the truth should I say ninety-nine 
hundredths — of them are nothing more than means by which you 
secure your share of the products of commerce ; they constitute the 
machinery by which you pluck its Hesperian fruit, and have nothing 
to do with the root that supports it, or with the native vigor which 
exudes into this rich luxuriance. Sir, the true tap-root of commerce 
is found in the nature and character of the people who carry it on. 
They and their ancestors, for nearly two centuries, have been engaged 
in it. The industry of every class of men in the Eastern States has 
reference to its condition, and is affected by it. Whj' then treat it as 
a small concern, — as an affair only of traders and of merchants ? 
Why intimate that agriculture can flourish without itV When, it 
fact, the interests of these two branches of industry are so intimately 
connected, that the slightest afiection of the one is instantly communi- 
cated to the other. 

" The state of agriculture is adapted, and has been for centuries, to 
the supply of the wants of this internal consumption. The farmer is 
bound to commerce by a thousand intimate ties, which, while it is in its 
ordinary state of prosperity, he neither sees nor realizes. But let the 
current stop, and the course of business stagnate, in consequence of any 
violent disturbance of commerce, the effect is felt as much, and in some 
cases more, by those who inhabit the mountains, as by those who dwell 
on the sea-coast. The country is associated with the city in one com- 
mon distress, not merely through sympathy, but by an actual perception 
of a union in misfortune. It is this indissoluble community of interest 
between agriculture and commerce, which pervades the eastern por- 
tion of the United States, that makes our treatment of the commercial 
interest one of the most delicate as well as important questions that 
can be brought before this legislature. That interest is not of a nature 
long to be neglected with impunity. Its powers, when once brought 
into action by the necessity of self-defence, cannot but be irresistible 
in this nation. Sir, two fifths of your whole white population are 
commercial ; or, which is the same thing as to its political effect, have 



SPEECH ON COAST DEFENCE. 101 

tlieir happiness so dependent upon its prosperity, that they cannot fail 
to act in concert, when the object is to crush those who oppress or 
those who are willing to destroy it. Of the five millions which now 
constitute the white population of these States, two millions are north 
and east of New Jersey. This great mass is naturally and indissolubly 
connected with commerce. To this is to be added the like interest, 
and that of no inconsiderable weight, which exists in the Middle and 
Southern States. Are these powerful influences to be forgotten or 
despised ? Are such portions of the Union to be told that they are 
not to be defended, neither on the ocean nor yet on the land V Will 
they, ought they, to submit to a system, which, at the same time that 
it extracts from their industry the whole national revenue, neither pro- 
tects it abroad nor at home ? It needs no spirit of prophecy to say they 
tvill not. It is no breach of any duty to say they ought not. No power 
on earth can prevent a party from growing up, in these States, in sup- 
port of the rights of commerce to a sea and land protection. The 
state of things which must necessarily follow is, of all others, to be 
deprecated. As I have said before, when party passions run parallel 
to local interests of great power and extent, nothing can prevent 
national convulsions ; all the consequences of which can neither be 
numbered nor measured. 

" Mr. Chairman, I do not introduce this idea to threaten or terrify. 
I speak, I hope, to wise men, — to men of expei-ience, and of acquaint- 
ance with human nature, both in history and by observation. Is it 
possible to content great, intelligent, and influential portions of your 
citizens by anything short of a real attention to their interests in 
some degree proportionate to their magnitude and nature ? When 
this is not the case, can any political union be either happy or lasting? 
Now is the time to give a pledge to the commercial interests that they 
may be assured of protection, let whatever influence predominate in 
the legislature. A great majority of this House are from States not 
connected intimately with commerce. Show then those which are, 
that you feel for them as brothers ; that you are willing to give them a 
due share of the national revenue for their protection. Show an en- 
lightened and fair reciprocity. Be superior to any exclusive regard 
to local interest. On such principles this Union, so desirable and so 
justly dear to us all, will continue and be cherished by every member 
of the compact. But let a narrow, selfish, local, sectional policy pre- 
vail, and struggles will commence which will terminate, through irrita- 
tions and animosities, in either a change of the system of government 
or in its dissolution." 



102 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

The next question of historical importance in which SFr. 
Quincy took an active part was that of the abolition of the 
slave-trade, which came up because the year 1808 was at hand, 
when Congress was permitted by the Constitution to prohibit that 
traiRc if it so pleased. The question was brought to the notice 
of Congress by the President in his annual Message, and it was 
referred to a committee of wliich Mr. Early * of Georgia was the 
chairman. There was no difference of opinion as to the pro- 
hibition of the traffic, or at least no expression of any ; but the 
practical details of the law, the penalties by which it was to be 
enforced, and, above all, the disposition to be made of such 
negroes as might be brought into the country in violation of it, 
gave rise to violent and excited debates. The committee report- 
ed a law prohibiting the slave-trade after the 31st of December, 
1807, imposing certain penalties for its breach, and providing 
that all negroes imported after that date should be forfeited. 
The object of this provii-ion undoubtedly was to obtain directly 
what the Constitution only gave indirectly and by implication, — 
the sanction of the government of the United States to the prin- 
ciple of slave-holding, by making it hold and sell men as prop- 
erty. The astuteness of the slave-holding mind on all points 
touching slavery was shown in this proposition, and all the tactics 
of bullying and bluster with which later Congressional campaigns 
have made us familiar, were employed in the debate to which it 
gave rise. It havino; been moved that the words " shall be en- 
titled to his or her freedom " should be inserted after the word 
"forfeited," a furious fight ensued over this amendment. The 
Southern members resisted it, on the ground that the emancipa- 
tion of the imported Africans would increase the number of free 
negroes, who, as Mr, Early affirmed, "were considered in the 
States where they are found in considerable numbers as instru- 
ments of murder, theft, and conflagration." And so craftily was 
this proposition of forfeiture to the government qualified, that its 
drift was not at first discerned by the Northern membei'S. For, 

* Peter Early, born in Virginia, 1773; educated at Princeton; emigrated to 
Georgia in 1795 ; Representative from 1802 to 1807 ; afterwards a Judge of the 
Supreme Court of Georgia, and Governor j died, 1817. 



ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. 103 

strong as was their disapprobation of slavery in the abstract, 
tliey felt no disposition to expose their Southern brethren to all 
the horrors of insurrection which it was assumed would follow 
the multiplication of free negroes. Indeed, Mr. Early candidly 
said, that, if these negroes were left free in the Southern State:=, 
not one of them would be alive in a year. And although the 
Federalists as a party, and Mr. Quincy eminently among them, 
i-egarded the political element of slavery as full of dangers to the 
future of the nation, these opinions had worked no personal and 
social alienation between Northern and Southern men, such as 
has since taken place. During the ascendency of the Federal 
party it had the support of many of the wealthiest and most in- 
telligent Southern planters and lawyers in all the Slave States, 
especially in the Carolinas, and there was still a remnant left 
that adhered to the old faith, though daily diminishing. There 
was, therefore, quite disposition enough to arrange this matter in 
the way the most satisfactory to the masters, without so rigid a 
regard to the rights of the negroes as, it is to be hoped, would 
have been had in later times. 

Mr. Quiacy at first opposed striking out the forfeiture clause, 
on the ground that this was the only way in which the United 
States could get the control of the Africans, so as to dispose of 
tliem in the manner most for their own interest. He said : — 

" May you not do with them what is best for human beings in that 
condition, — naked, helpless, ignorant of our laws, character, and 
manners ? You are afraid to trust the national government, and yet, 
by refusing to forfeit, you will throw them under the control of States, 
all of which may, and some of which will and must, retain them in 
slavery. The great objection to forfeiture is that it admits a title. 
But this does not follow. All the effect of forfeiture is, that whatever 
title can be acquired in the cargo shall be vested in the United States. 
If the cargo be such that, from the nature of the thing, no title can be 
acquired in it, then nothing vests in the United States. The only op- 
eration of the forfeiture is to vest the importer's color of title by the 
appropriate commercial term, perhaps the only term we can efl'ectu- 
ally use, for this purpose, in the United States, without interfering with 
the rights of the States. Grant that these persons have all the rights 
of man, will not those rights be as valid against the United States a« 



104 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

against the importer V And, by taking all color of title out of the im- 
porter, do we not place the United States in the best possible situation 
to give efficiency to the rights of man, in the case of the persons im- 
ported ? To my mind, if, when we have the power, we fail to 

secure to ourselves the means of giving freedom to them, under proper 
modifications, we have an agency in making them slaves." 

These views influenced a majority of the Northern members 
until the question of the final passage of the bill approached. At 
last they came to a sense of the disgrace which tlie forfeiture of 
the negroes to the government, and the permission to it to seL 
ihera as slaves if it so pleased, would bring upon the nation, and 
the whole matter was recommitted to a committee of one from 
each State. Mr. Quincy supported this recommittal in common 
with other Northern members, on the general grounds that they 
could not consent to any action which should authorize the sale 
of imported negroes, as slaves, by the government. They were 
willing that the persons should be forfeited, since the Southern 
members were so apprehensive of danger from their being set 
free in their territories ; but it was only on condition that it 
should be done in such a way as to prevent their conversion into 
slaves. There were also teclmical objections whicii called for 
the revision of a committee. This committee reported a bill pro- 
viding that such imported negroes should be sent to such States 
as had abolished slavery, there to be bound out as apprentices for 
a term of years, at the expiration of which they should be free. 
This bill produced a scene of great and violent excitement on the 
part of the slaveholders. Mr. Early declared that the people of 
the South would resist this provision with their lives ! This re- 
sistance to a measure which proposed doing all the slaveholders 
had demanded for their own safety, to wit, removing the imported 
nefroes from the slaveholding domain and providing for them in 
the Free States, showed that their purpose was, at least in part, 
to have the negroes sold as slaves to themselves. This object 
ihey did virtually gain at last, as the final settlement was by a 
bill originating in the Senate, providing that, though neither im- 
porter nor purchaser should have a title to such negroes, still the 
neo-roes should be subject to any regulation for their disposal that 



LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 105 

should be made by the States into whicli they might be brought. 
The design of the slaveholding party to make the Uuited States 
recognize the rightfulness of property in man was thus avoided, 
but it was at the cost of leaving the imported Africans to the 
tender mercies of the Slave States. The fact that the slavehold- 
ers were greatly incensed at the result, and regarded it as an 
injury and an affront, does not make this disposition of these un- 
fortunates any the less discreditable to Congress or tlie nation. 

During tlie second as Avell as the first session of the Ninth 
Congress, Mr. Quincy had the society of his wife, and they 
passed the winter, as they had the season previous, as boarders 
in the family of Judge Cranch, who had changed liis residence in 
the interval to a house at Greenleaf's Point. Their apartments 
were the resort of a very agreeable set of men, comprising the 
Federal members of Congress and such residents of Washington 
as were of Federal leanings, — for the tide of party spirit flowed 
too high and strong to admit of much social intercourse with per- 
sons on the opposite side. Among these eminent and pleasant 
companions may be mentioned Timothy Pickering, Benjamin 
Pickman, and Jabez Upham, of Massachusetts ; Colonel Benja- 
min Tallmadge, whose name is associated indissolubly with the 
touching Revolutionary episode of the captivity and death of 
Major Andre, and John Davenport,* Samuel W. Dana, Timothy 
Pitkin, Uriah Tracy,t and James Hillhouse, of Connecticut ; and 
James M. Broome,J of Delaware. Of two of their visitors my 
father wrote thus to a friend in Boston, after their first visit to 
him and my mother : — 

" Judge Marshall and Judge Washington passed last evening with 
us. They have more of the true New England look, character, and 
spirit than I have yet seen from Virginia. It might be association of 
ideas, but there was something in the manner of Judge Marshall that 

• John Davenport, Yale College, 1770; Representative from Connecticut, 1799 
to 1817; died, 1830. 

t Uriah Tracy, born, 1755; graduated at Yale College, 1778; Repre«entativo 
from Connecticut, 1793 to 1796; and Senator, 1796 to 1807, in which year ha 
died, and was the first tenant of the Congressional burying-ground. 

J James M. Broome, Representative from Delaware, 1805 to 1807. 
5 * 



106 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY, 

brought Judge Minot of Boston* very strongly to my recollection 
His eye is black, penetrating, and indicative of stronger passion than 
Minot possessed, or at least exhibited. There is a rare mixture of the 
expression of goodness, of correct thought, and of intelligence, in the 
face and eye of Judge Washington. Esteemed as they both are in 
New England, and disposed as we always are to overrate those at a 
distance, you may rely that these men lose nothing by approximation 
and personal acquaintance." 

Tiie following extract from a letter to my father from Mr. John 
Cotton Smith f of Connecticut, who had retired from Congress at 
the end of the long session, bears a cordial testimony to the charms 
of the society of which he had made a part, and to which the ani- 
mated intelligence of my mother's manners and conversation gave 
grace and tone, will make a fitting conclusion to this chapter. It 
is dated Sharon, August 25, 1806 : — 

" I am both happy and proud to abjure the general opinion that 
friendship, to be ardent and durable, must be exclusively the produc- 
tion of early life. My acquaintance with you, I trust, has furnished 
an ample refutation to this erroneous sentiment, and I deem a six 

winters' exile a cheap purchase of so valuable a discovery 

I do feel a pang in separating fi-om that noble band of chevaliers, who, 
small as their number is, have become the only depositaries of their 
country's honor. Nor will I conceal the tender emotions which agitate 
my breast at the recollection of the charming hours I have passed not 
many miles from the eastern branch of the Potomac. Imagination 
will long delight itself in recalling the hospitable salutation, the undis- 
sembled courtesy, the wisdom, and the wit, which enlivened and en- 
deared and rendered ever memorable those evenings. But this is a 
theme I must not pursue. It shall be resumed when we meet. May I 
hope ever to welcome you under my own roof? Should such an event 
take place, suhlimi feriam sidera vertice." 

* George Richards Minot, born, 1758; graduated at Harvard College, 1778; 
died, 1802. Author of some valuable historical works. 

I John Cotton Smith, born, 1769; graduated at Yale College, 1783; was a 
Representative in Congress from 1800 to 1806. He was afterwards Governor of 
Connecticut, 1812-1817, and Judge of the Supreme Court of that State. Ha 
died in 1845. 



SUMMER OCCUPATIONS. 107 



CHAPTER VI. 

1807-1808. 

Summer Occupations. — Beklin and Milan Decrees. — British Orders 
IN Council. — Right of Search. — The Chesapeake Outrage. — Ex- 
tra Session. — Mr. Quincy takes the Lead of the Federal Party 
IN the House. — His Private Life. — The Embargo. — John Quincy 
Adams joins the Democrats. — Speech on Empowering the Presi- 
dent TO suspend the P^mbargo, etc. 

SOON after the expiration of the Ninth Congress, on the 3d 
of March, 1807, Mr. Quincy returned home, and spent the 
summer as usual at his country-^eut. A brief journal which he 
kept during that season bears witness to his persistent industry. 
The state of public affairs directed his attention particularly to 
the law of nations, and especially to those branches of it relating 
to war and peace, to the right of expatriation, and to the rights 
of neutral nations. He reviewed carefully the portions of Gro- 
tius and PufFendorf which treat of these subjects, and made a 
thorough study of Bynkershoek's Qucestiones Juris Publici, of 
which he made an abstract with pages of quotations. One of 
these shows that this learned jurist could relax into a mild jest, 
especially when the sacred subject of tobacco was in question. 

'■^ July 10. — Read Bynkershoek, Lib. I., from chap. 4 to 15. In 
chap. 10 is a rare sample of Dutch wit on a favorite topic. The 
Spaniards once declared tobacco an article contraband of war. This 
was so highly resented by the English that they granted reprisals 
against Spain. The solemn jurisconsult remarks : Sed an ea contro- 
t^ersia de Tabaco tandem in fimium ablerlt, 7iescio ; hoc scio, me His- 
panis non consendre, quia verum est, tabaci nullum esse usum ad cceden- 
dum hostem." * 

Mr. Quincy also gives an abstract of the treatise of M. Hubner 

* " But whether that dispute touching tobacco will finally vanish in smoke, I 
cannot say. This I know, that I cannot agree with the Spaniards; for the truth 
is, thero is no way of turning tobacco to the destruction of an enemy." 



108 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

De la Saisie des Bdtiments Neutres, with long extracts, and of 
Robert Ward's " Inquiry into the Foundations and History of 
the Law of Nations in Europe." And these more serious studies 
were enlivened occasionally by the variation of Cicero de Officiis. 
He complains frequently of the interruptions made by the calls 
of society in the course of his studies, and now and then gives a 
specimen of what they were. For example : — 

'■^ July 25. — Dined in company with the Trustees of the Agricultu- 
ral Society at Ex-Presldent John Adams's. An Englishman named 
Kendall was introduced to us. He has come into the country, as it is 
hinted, with the design of writing his travels. He was forward, talk- 
ative, — willing, however, to hear others, — and apparently very de- 
sirous of giving the conversation a political turn. Whether this was 
through design or natural bias of mind, I was doubtful, but rather be- 
lieve the former." 

"July 31. — Whole day with the Selectmen, on their annual visit 
to Deer Island. Among the guests Major Thomas PInckney, of South 
Carolina. A singular mildness and modesty in his manners, with 
marks of great moderation and firmness of character. Also Mr. Ken- 
dall, whom I saw at Mr. Adams's. Well Informed, full of observation 
and research, opinionated." 

"August 3 to 10. — Business and society occupied and engrossed 
my time. Every day in Boston. No opportunity for regular, and but 
little for occasional reading. On Tuesday, 4th, dined at Benjamin 
Joy's, with Major PInckney, and on the 7th this gentleman. President 
Adams, etc. dined with me. I am charmed with T. Pinckney. He is 
a perfect gentleman. Exhibits the man of the world united with the 
man of retirement. He has seen much and read with observation, yet 
is in nothing obtrusive. Plain in manners and dress." 

" Anyust 11. — The engagements of duty and friendship, which have 
BO frequently of late broke in upon my intellectual pursuits, are, in a 
great measure, terminated. I hope, therefore, for more zeal in my 
studies and more fruit from my time." 

The Mr. Kendall here mentioned did execute his pur[)ose of 
■writing a book on America, which was published in London, and 
republished in New York in three volumes. Major Pinckney was 
one of the South Carolina Federalists who remained true to the 
last. He was the first Minister to England after tlie formation of 
the government, afterwards Minister to Spain, and the candidate 



BERLIN AND MILAN DECKELS. 109 

voted for by the Federalists at the same time with John Adams, 
under the original provision for the election of President and 
Vice-President, subsequently a member of Congress, and a Major- 
General in the war of 1812. He died in 1828. 

The threatening aspect of foreign affairs, and the disturbance 
of prosperity at home, might well demand the most careful prep- 
aration of every man called to take part in the business of the 
nation. The interruption which the European war had caused 
to the commerce of the Atlantic States had occasioned wide- 
spread distress, reaching all classes. The victory of Trafalgar 
having secured to Great Britain the monopoly of commerce 
through the sovereignty of the sea, Bonaparte devised his Con- 
tinental System to hinder her enjoyment of it. From the battle- 
field of Jena he issued the Berlin Decree, declaring the British 
Islands in a state of blockade, and forbidding all commercial in- 
tercourse with them. Although there was at first some pretence 
of making an exception of American ships, they were soon in- 
cluded in the general condemnation, and it was officially declared 
that all merchandise obtained in Great Britain or her colonies 
was lawful prize, on board what ships soever it might be found, 
and the point was reserved whether the ships were not good prize 
as well. Soon afterwards, Elngland issued her Orders in Council 
prohibiting any neutral trade with France or her allies unless 
through British ports. To these Orders Bonaparte soon replied 
by the Milan Decree, which declared every neutral vessel good 
prize which should comply with their requisitions. Tiius the sea 
was effectually shut against the American merchants by this com- 
bination of both belligerents against them, for their ships were 
virtually the only neutral vessels left. The distress thus occa- 
sioned was all but universal in the seaboard States. 

Another great cause of complaint against the British govern- 
ment was the right it claimed to search merchant-vessels at sea, 
and to take out of them such sailors as owed allegiance to the 
King of England. This right the British ministry steadily re- 
fused to give up. During the brief ascendency of the Whigs 
under Lord Grenville, in 1806, the ministry was disposed to 
mitigate tlie severity of its enforcement as far as English opinion 



110 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

would permit. They agreed to exercise it only in cases where 
there was strong ground for suspecting the presence of actual 
deserters, to enjoin the greatest caution against molesting Amer- 
ican citizens, and to provide prompt redress in case of mistake 
or injury. This treaty, negotiated by James Monroe and Wil- 
liam Pinkney of Maryland, with the ministry the most favorable 
to America that had held power since the peace of 1783, was 
summarily and arbitrarily rejected by Mr. Jefferson, without lay- 
ing it before the Senate, or even consulting with any member of 
his Cabinet, excepting Mr. Madison, the Secretary of State, on 
the ground that the right of impressment had not been entirely 
abandoned. Whatever might be the abstract merits of the 
question, it was certainly unwise and unstatesmanlike for the 
weakest maritime power in the world, as we were at that time, 
to reject so beneficial a treaty with the strongest, on a point 
which the victors of the Nile and of Trafalgar would yield only 
to force of arms ; especially as the ratification of the treaty in- 
volved no sacrifice of principle, since the United States did not 
thereby recognize the right of search. It is no wonder that the 
Federalists saw in this audacious usurpation of power a proof 
of the sympathy of the Administration with France and of its 
hatred to England, nor that the Tory ministry which soon re- 
placed that of Lord Grenville should take the same view of the 
matter. The United States lost the benefits of a treaty scarcely 
less advantageous than Jay's, under which they had made such 
progress in wealth and strength, while the right of search was 
exercised by England with all its ancient rigor. Neither the 
terrors of Mr. Jefferson's gunboats, nor the tluniders of the Non- 
Importation Act, which he held " checked in mid-volley," fright 
ened the sturdy Tories, when they came into power, from claiming 
and exercising the prescriptive right of the strongest, — the law 
of the British lion at all times. 

In a conversation which my father held with Mr. IMei-ry on 
this subject, that diplomatist related his endeavors to negotiate a 
treaty with Mr. Madison, which were rendered abortive by the 
fixed determination of the President as to this disputed point. 
He assured Mr. Madison that this right had been exercised by 



RIGHT OF SEARCH. Ill 

Great Britain so long, that she would as soon abandon her marine 
as give it up. And to show how unlikely it was that she would 
be legislated or menaced into resigning the right, he related to 
the Secretary the following anecdote : — 

" The right of receiving the honors of the flag in the narrow seas 
had long been claimed by Great Britain, and was unquestionably a 
less important right than impressment. Yet at the Congress of 
Amiens, at the negotiation of that treaty, Joseph Bonaparte made a 
proposition that Great Britain should waive claiming that honor from 
the French. I was at that time Secretary of Legation, and as such 
was admitted at the Congress Board to discuss the various questions 
which might arise ; Lord Cornwallis, the minister, a military character, 
(chosen out of comphment to Bonaparte,) not being sufficiently ac- 
quainted with diplomatic principles or the French language to under- 
take that part. 

" No sooner was the proposition made than I at once told Joseph 
Bonaparte that, if that was made a si7ie qua non, the treaty might as 
well be broken off at once, for my country would never yield. ' O,' 
said he, ' It Is only a name, and the expressions of the treaty might 
easily be so arranged as to express It by construction, and so shde Into 
use without exciting any popular sensation.' I replied that, though he 
called It a name, I called it a thing. Let the British seaman once find 
that his ship had not the same honor paid to It which he was accus- 
tomed to receive, and he would feel himself degraded ; and what effect 
this would have upon the spirit of the navy it was not possible to fore- 
tell. 

" Upon my explaining the proposition to Lord Cornwallis, the old 
and sensible veteran had no other way to express his shame and sense 
of disgrace at the very idea of such a concession, than by covering 
his face with his hands and laying it upon the table. ' There,' said I, 
' M. Bonaparte, is your answer.' 

" Nevertheless he persisted. And so desirous was the French gov- 
ernment to obtain this name, as he called it, that it offered to make 
provision for the King of Sardinia, in case we would accede, — an ob- 
ject they knew we had much at heart. On our persisting to decline 
even considering it, they insisted on our remitting it home to our gov- 
ernment. From which we received for answer, that his Majesty would 
never yield that right while he possessed his crown. 

" From this anecdote, I said to Mr. Madison, you will judge the 
likelihood of su icess in the object you propose." 



112 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

The question of impressment was bronght home to the mind 
of the country in the most exaspei-ating shape possible by the 
affair of the Chesapeake and Leopard, which occurred in June 
of this year. Tiie British naval officers on the coast were great- 
ly, and not unreasonably, annoyed by the desertion of their men 
to the United States, where they were protected by public senti- 
ment, and indeed by public law, as there was no treaty stipulation 
for surrendering them. The British officers complained that they 
were openly insulted in the streets of the seaports, when they 
went on shore, by deserters from their own ships. On the 1st of 
June, Vice- Admiral Berkeley, the commander on the North Amer- 
ican Station, issued a circular letter to the captains of the ships 
of his squadron, in which, after reciting these facts, and also that 
many of the deserters had enlisted on board the American frigate 
Chesapeake, he ordered any of the commanders of his Britannic 
Majesty's ships which should meet with the Chesapeake beyond 
the limits of the United States to demand permission to search her 
for desertei's, and in case of refusal to proceed to search her with- 
out permission, offering to the captain of the Chesapeake the same 
privilege on board their ships. This was a new construction of 
public law, worthy of the old Scandinavian sea-kings, but not in 
accordance with the stricter rulings of the older or later authori- 
ties. The right of search and impressment was never held to 
apply to national ships, which are regarded as part of the soil of 
the country to which they belong, but only to merchant-vessels 
In compliance with these orders, the Leopard, Captain Humphries, 
followed the Chesapeake as she was proceeding to sea on her 
way to the Mediterranean Station, and, overhauling her, demand- 
ed permission to search her for deserters. This being of course 
refused, he fired several broadsides into her, killing three men 
and wounding eight or ten more, among whom was her com- 
mander. Captain Barron. The Chesapeake had gone to sea with 
such a culpable lack of preparation, that the only gun which was 
fired on her side was touched off with a coal brought from the 
cook's galley. There was nothing for it but to submit. Her flag 
was struck, and she was searched by officers from the Leopard, 
and four men — one white and three black — were carried off 



THE CHESAPEAKE OUTRAGE. 113 

as deserters. Of these the first was hanged, and the three last 
pardoned on condition of entering the British navy, though their 
claim to be Americans was not contradicted. The excitement 
throughout the country, of mingled rage and shame, was most in- 
tense. The President issued a proclamation, ordering British 
ships to leave the American waters, or, if they refused, — as he 
had no means of compelling them to obey, — forbidding any in- 
tercourse with them ; and orders were despatched to Messrs. 
Monroe and Pinkney to suspend all negotiations until this out- 
rage was disavowed and atoned for. Both of these demands the 
British government were ready to comply with. They disavowed 
Admiral Berkeley's letter, recalled him, offered the restoration of 
the three black sailors, and a pecuniary satisfaction to the wound- 
ed and the families of the killed on board the Chesapeake. This 
reparation, however, was made dependent on the President's re 
Yoking his proclamation shutting the American ports against 
Enslish ships, on the ground that it was stipulated in Jay's 
treaty that no such hostile demonstration should be made until 
satisfaction had been first asked and refused. This Jefferson re- 
fused to do, and the matter was not finally settled till 1811. But 
the ministry utterly refused to entertain the proposition to aban- 
don the right of search and of impressment on board merchant- 
ships, or to renew negotiations on the basis of the treaty which 
had been so cavalierly rejected by Mr. Jefferson, after its conclu- 
sion by the Ministers he had appointed. 

The public mind was justly and profoundly incensed by this 
high-handed outrage, and the Federalists shared in the general 
'feeling of indignation and humiliation. But they saw that the 
despicably helpless condition of the nation, with a handful of 
useless gunboats, with no army and almost no fortifications, had 
invited and made it possible. And they saw, too, that the ruin 
of our commerce was quite as much the work of France as of 
England, and the insolence of her demands not less. But Eng- 
land was standing almost alone between Bonaparte and universal 
empire, and they regarded with apprehension and disgust the 
endeavors of Mr. Jefferson, as they looked at the matter, to enlist 
the sympathy and virtual help of the nation on the side of tha 



114 LIFE OF JOSIAII QUINCY. 

military despotism which threatened to overwhelm the world. 
On this matter Mr. Quincy speaks thus : — 

" It was this policy of the Administration which the Federalists 
deemed it their duty, both as men and patriots, to oppose. For Great 
Britain there was among them no general predilection, but they re- 
garded her as struggling alone against an attempt at universal empire. 
The measures she adopted were deemed by them irreconcilable with 
our rights, violent and autocratic, but by us, in our relative state of 
naval power, irresistible. True policy, they thought, required the 
United States not to aid the aggressive and ambitious belligerent, but 
to vindicate our independence against Great Britain by permitting the 
merchants to arm in the defence of commercial rights, and to take the 
risk of war. In this course they were far from unanimous. A majority 
preferred to take the chance of events, and to submit for a time to the 
injuries of both belligerents, rather than take part with either. The 
policy of ihe Administration, to use the commerce of the country as a 
weapon ag.unst Great Britain, they detested, regarding it as self-de- 
structive, in effect aiding France, and doing more injury to ourselves 
than to England. Their measures of embargo and non-intercourse 
were symptoms of that hostility to commerce which Southern poli- 
ticians took no pains to conceal." 

Such was the condition of public affairs, and such the opinions 
of the Federalists respecting them, when the President sum- 
moned an extraordinary session of Congress on the 26th of 
October, 1807, to consult and determine on such measures as in 
their wisdom might be deemed meet for the welfare of the 
United States. Mr. Quincy left Boston on the 12th of October, 
and reached Washington on the 23d. His own account of his 
way of life, as contained in a letter to his wife, who did not ac-- 
company him to the capital, is as follows : — 

" I took lodgings at a Mr. Coyle's, an eligible boarding-house, having 
my friend Colonel Tallmadge * settled in the same house and the room 
adjoining mine. At half past six in the morning my servant comes 
into my room, makes my fire, gets my dressing apparatus, and at half 
past seven I am out of bed, and dressed for the day. My servant, not 
content with tying my hair simply with a ribbon, works it up into a 

* Benjamin Tallmadge, born in Suffolk County, New York, 1754. A distin- 
guishsd Revolntion.iry officer. Represented Connecticut from 1801 to 1817: 
died, 1835. 



EXTRA SESSION OF CONGRESS. 115 

most formidable queue, at least three inches long, and as big as a reason- 
able Dutch quill. He says this is the mode in New York, and as I do 
not wear powder, and it looks a little more trig, I acquiesce. In other 
respects he follows your instructions, given before my departure, with 
great particularity. About nine o'clock we breakfast ; from eleven to 
two at Congress; at three, dinner; at seven, tea; at eleven, in bed; 
all the time not accounted for, in my chamber answering lettei-s or 
preparing to fulfil the duties I have undertaken." 

During this session, and for the rest of his Congressional life, 
Mr. Quincy practically took the leadership of the small Federal 
phalanx in the House. Although Mr. Samuel W. Dana,* of 
Connecticut, was technically the leader of the party, as befitting 
his greater age and longer parliamentary experience, still Mr. 
Quincy, from his superiority as a debater and a speaker, was 
looked upon by friends and foes as the actual champion of its 
principles and its policy. He had reluctantly fallen in with the 
plan of the Federalists during the last Congress, of following 
the lead of Randolph, who had nothing in common with them, 
excepting his detestation of Jefferson, and from this time for- 
ward he acted and spoke as his views of public duty prompted, 
without regard to any such fancied expediency. His opinions 
and conduct as to this matter received the approval of many emi- 
nent Federalists, whose views were expressed in the following 
paragraph of a letter of November 19, 1807, from Mr. Harrison 
Gray Otis, a consistent and active Federalist as long as Federal- 
ism was. 

" I confess myself incapable of perceiving the policy of that course 
which gives to our adversaries the exclusive possession of the public 
ear, and exhibits the Federal minority as a browbeaten and despond- 
ing cabal, who either cannot or dare not vindicate their own principles 
or arraign those of their opponents. It sinks the pride of party and 
enfeebles the principle. It is in Congress that the principles of Fed- 
eralism should appear to be embodied. It is thence that its vigor, 
virtue, and consistency should be reacted upon its scattered votaries.'* 

♦ Samuel W. Dana, born, 1747; graduated, Yale College, 1775; Representative 
from 1799 to 1811; and Senator from 1811 to 1821. Considering the prominence 
of Mr. Dana in the House during twelve most important years, it is singular that 
Mr. Charles Lanman should not have mentioned the fact of his membership, 
only of his Senatorship, in his Dictionary of Congress. He died in 1830. 



116 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

"When Congress came together, the whole opposition, including 
Eivndolph and his handful of malcontent Democrats, only amount- 
ed to twenty-eight votes. The Democratic party was not unani- 
mous as to the Speakership, many of the Southern Democrats 
refusing to vote for Joseph B. Varnum * of Massachusetts, the 
candidate of Mr. Jefferson. He was, however, chosen by a bare 
majority, and signalized his fidelity to liis political chieftain by 
leaving Messrs. Randolph and Quincy, not only off the Com- 
mittee of Ways and Means, but off all the standing committees. 
My father describes Mr. Varnum as "one of the most obsequious 
lools of the Administration, elected through the influence of Jef- 
ferson, who courted with the most extreme assiduity the leaders 
of the Democracy of Massachusetts. He was just capable of 
going through the routine of the office, — an automaton ready to 
move in any direction the magician who pulled the strings jerked 
him." 

It was a time of great public anxiety and alarm, especially on 
the seaboard and among the commercial classes. Commerce had 
been nearly destroyed by the European belligerents, and what 
remained was tlireateiied with destruction by the United States 
government under pretext of protecting it. A very exaggerated 
idea of the importance of American commerce to Europe, and 
especially to England, prevailed in the Democratic party. This 
belief was fb>tered by Mr. Jefferson, who indeed carried it almost 
to fanaticism. In the commerce of the country he saw the means 
of carrying on a bloodless war with the belligerent he hated, and 
of giving indirect assistance to the one he favored, without any 
expense excepting the ruin of the merchants and of the multi- 
tudes dependent upon trade for their support. He had in earlier 
times expressed the abstract opinion that it would be happy if 
the United States could be shut out from the re>t of the world, 
like China, and her inhabitants be all husbandmen. In common 
with the members of his party from the South and West, he 
looked with equanimity upon the distresses his interferences with 

* Joseph B. Varnum, born, 1759; Representative from 1795 to 1811; Speaker 
of the Tenth and Eleventh Congresses; Senator from 1811 to 1817; and President 
jyrc tem. of the Senate; died, 1821. 



EXTRA SESSION OF CONGRESS. 117 

commerce might work to the commercial region, vainly imagin- 
ing that agriculture would not suffer through an inevitable sym- 
pathy with the destruction of trade. It was, then, with anxious 
and gloomy anticipations that Mr. Quincy entered upon his sec- 
ond term of service. His personal feelings in view of the com- 
flict before him he thus expressed to his wife : — 

^^ November 1, 1807. — Allow yourself to entertain no apprehensions 
with regard to me. The times are difficult, and a tempest is up in the 

sky, but that is the very moment to be fearless and collected 

Fear nothing about my being stung or Inflamed by the hornets of the 
House. Nothing occurring on the floor has or can cost me a single 
pang. After fatigue duty all day, I come home, read or write all 
the evening, am asleep at eleven o'clock, and nothing troubles my 
repose." 

In his first movement in Congress Mr. Quincy was successful, 
although opposed by the men representing the pleasure of the 
President. Mr. Jefferson had, as before stated, forbidden British 
armed vessels from entering our harbors. This fact he had stated 
in his Message. Mr. Quincy moved that he be requested to lay 
a copy of the Proclamation before the House. It is not easy to 
see what objection there could have been to this motion, and yet 
it was violently opposed by Mr. Jacob Crowninshield * of Mas- 
sachusetts, and Mr. Alston f of North Carolina ; both of them 
authentic mouthpieces of Mr. Jefferson. The real objection to 
the Proclamation was that it was issued in conti-avention of the 
provision of Jay's treaty, that no act of retaliation should be made 
by either power without a demand for re{)aration being first 
made and denied. But this could hardly have been the motive 
for the resistance to laying it before the House, after it had been 
published to all the world. The reason probably was that the 

* Jacob Crowninshield, Representative from 1803 to 1808, when he died at 
Washington during the session. He declined the Secretaryship of the Navy- 
offered to him by Mr. Jefferson, at the beginning of his second Administration. 
Jlr. Lanmnn's article on him implies erroneously that he became Secretary in 
March, 1805, and left Congress at that time. See Hildreth's History of the 
United States, Vol. II. p. 567. 

t Willis Alston, junior, Representative from North Carolina from 1803 to 1816, 
and from 1825 to 1831. 



118 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

motion proceeded from one of the opposition. Samuel Harrison 
Smith, the editor of the National Intelligencer, the organ of the 
Administration, had warned his party, speaking of a previous 
motion of INIr. Quincy, "always to keep an eye upon the enemy, 
and to treat all the measures that gentleman should propose as 
they did that one, —vote him down!" Mr. Quincy chose to 
assume that this was the occasion of the opposition to his motion, 
and he attributed it, in his reply, " to the determination of the 
House to vote down, at all events, all propo>itions proceeding 
from the minority, according to the advice addressed to it by a 
printer generally understood as speaking demi-official language." 

" This light," he says, " thrown directly into the eyes of the majority, 
made them falter, and they passed my resolution by seventy ayes to 
thirty-two nays. This was a sad mortification to Crowninshield and 
Alston. Smith was the only stenographer in the House, and we were 
wholly at his mercy. In general, however, he was fair, and often sub- 
mitted his reports of speeches of members of the minority to them for 
correction." 

All Americans of that day who were not possessed with the 
delusion that their commerce was of such vital consequence to 
the prosperity, if not to the existence of England, tliat she would 
yield to any demands rather than risk its lo-s, were of the opin- 
ion that some reasonable preparations should be made for hostili- 
ties in case the irritation of the public mind, kept alive by the 
aopgressions of England on the one side and the suicidal policy 
of the Administration on the other, should seek rel'.ef in war. 
Nothing was further from the intentions or wishes of Mr. Jeffer- 
son and his adherents than a war with England. But there was 
certainly danger that they might find themselves obliged, in de- 
cent consistency, to resort to more direct hostilities to obtain their 
end, should their favorite policy of destroying their own com- 
merce in the hope of damaging that of England fail of success. 
Besides, the popular passions, under the constant provocation of 
the diatribes against England with which the Democratic press 
teemed, might be raised to a pitch of fury which would carry the 
party beyond the control of its leaders, and compel them to war 
in order to retain their power. Fisher Ames, who was regarded 



EXTRA SESSION OF CONGRESS. 119 

by the Federalists as the wisest counsellor, as well as the chief 
ornament of the party, expresses this general feeling on their 
part in a letter to Mr. Quincy, dated Dedliam, December 6, 1807. 

" Our Cabinet takes counsel of the mob, and It is now a question 
whether the hatred of Great Britain, and the reproach fixed even 
upon violent men, if they will not proceed in their violence, will not 
overcome the fears of the maritime States, and of the planters in Con- 
gress. The usual levity of a democracy has not appeared in regard 
to Gi-eat Bi'itain. We have been steady in our hatred of her, and 
when popular passions are not worn out by time, but augment, they 
must, 1 should think, explode in war." * 

The party in power, however, scouted these forebodings as idle 
fears, and refused to make any other preparations for possible 
hostilities than the trifling appropriations for fortifications already 
spoken of, and for the gunboats which were their main dependence 
for repulsing an enemy's fleet. This last pet scheme of Mr. Jeffer- 
son for the cheap protection of our coasts and harbors was a bitter 
jest with the Federalists. They scouted its inefficiency as more' 
likely to invite than to repel an attack, and laughed at the reply to 
the argument that a gunboat could be no possible match for a ship 
of war, that its very smallness and lightness gave it eminent fa- 
cilities for running away. After ridiculing the scheme as one 
well contrived for the encouragement of cowardice, Mr. Quincy 
said : — 

" It was not, therefore, without some regret that I heard my honor- 
able colleague (Mr. Crowninshield) dwell with such an apparent 
satisfaction on the great advantage which these boats gave of getting 
out of harm's way, and annoying the enemy from shallows, and con- 
cealed behind points of land, retreating as the enemy advanced. I 
begin to fear lest it may be thought that this is our way of fighting 
in the Northern States, and that such are the calculations which our 

* Fisher Ames's Works, edited by his son, Seth Ames, Vol. I. p. 405. The 
letters of that eminent man to my father are, most of them, contained in this 
edition of his works, by which circumstance I am debarred from giving them 
entire in their order. The familiar and political correspondence of Mr. Ames 
entitles him to as high a place among the letter-writers as his speeches do among 
the orators of the world. They have every solid and sparkling quality that goes 
to make up good letters 



120 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

warriors would make when the enemy should come. But, sir, the soil 
in which Prebles spring yields not men who will seek safety m flight, 
or who will hide themselves when danger approaches. No, sir. They 
will meet the enemy at the harbor's mouth. Their bodies will be their 
country's bulwarks. They will engage at close quarters, and if you 
will not give them decks of their own to fight upon, they will find 
means to fight on those of the enemy." 

The Non-Importation Act of the year before had been but a 
kind of reconnoissance in force, preparatory to the opening of the 
war against England by commercial restrictions. It had been 
believed that it would bring the enemy to terms by the ter- 
ror the mere threat would strike to her shop-keeping heart. To 
give her time for reflection, the date of its going into operation 
was fixed at a distant day, and was again postponed in the hope 
that she would relinquish her right of impressment rather tlian 
lose our custom. As I2ngland made no sign of surrender, Mr. 
Jefferson brought out of the armory of his invention the engine 
which he had devised as sure to bring her to his feet, and he lost 
no time in putting it into position and bringing it to bear upon 
the enemy. This was the famous Embargo Act, by which all 
American ships were forbidden the sea and locked up in the 
ports. On the 18th of December he sent a Message to both 
Houses, perhaps the shortest on record of those proverbially 
long-winded documents, consisting of two sentences, recommend- 
ing, " in view of the great and increasing dangei's with which our 
vessels, merchandise, and seamen are threatened on the high 
seas and elsewhere from the belligerent powers of Europe," and 
of the importance " of keeping in safety these essential re- 
sources," " an inhibition of the departui-e of our vessels from the 
ports of the United States." The Senate signalized its obedience 
to the higher powers by perhaps the very swiftest despatch ever 
known in the case of so important a measure. Four hours suf- 
ficed to bring in the bill and to pass it through all its stages, 
under a suspension of the rules. This action was forthwith 
communicated to the House, already engaged in considering the 
subject, and it forthwith took up the Senate Bill, gave it its three 
readings, and referred it to the Committee of the Whole, on mo- 



THE EMBARGO. 121 

tion of Mr. Crowninshield, of Massachusetts, with the view, prob- 
ably, of disposing of the matter with the same celerity which 
had distinguished the action of the Senate. But this could not 
be fully effected, and the bill was discussed in Committee of the 
Whole for three days and almost as many nights, since the debate 
was protracted late into the nights in the hope of compelling the 
Committee to report the bill. Mr. Quincy moved as an amend- 
ment, that fishing-vessels might be permitted to go to i^ea, upon 
giving bonds that they should carry on no commerce whatever, 
and return with their fare to the United States. This was voted 
down by eighty-two nays to forty yeas. This provision, however, 
was finally incorporated with the bill before it went into opera- 
tion, during the many amendatory tinkering^ it had to undergo 
in consequence of the haste in which it was concocted and carried 
through Congress. Another amendment of his, moving " that 
nothing in this act should be construed to contravene any rights 
or privileges arising out of any treaties with foreign nations," 
met with the same fate, by a vote of seventy-five nays to fifty-two 
yeas. The Embargo finally became a law by eighty-two yeas to 
forty-four nays. The dismay which the promulgation of this 
edict, thus registered by Congress, carried to the whole seaboard, 
was dire, and the ruin which it too truly foreboded was terrible 
and universal. The people of Massachusetts, which then in- 
cluded Maine, and especially the Boston district, felt most cruelly 
this blow aimed, not merely at their prosperity, but at their daily 
bread. And this sense of injury was embittered by the insulting 
pretext that they were thus ruined in their own defence and for 
their own good ! And it was clearly seen, notwithstanding the 
pretended impartiality of including both belligerents in the reci- 
tal of the injuries which called for the measure, that the P^mbargo 
was virtually and designedly a co-operation with the Continental 
System of Bonaparte, the trade with France being infinitesimally 
small when compared with that of Great Britain. And in this 
view, as we shall see by and by, Bonaparte himself cordially 
agreed. 

The following extract from the last letter Mr. Quincy ever re- 
ceived from Mr. Ames, in reply to one written while the Embargo 

6 



122 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

was before the Committee of the Whole, gives eloquent utterance 
to the passionate grief with which he, in common with the other 
Federal leaders, regarded the condition of his country. It is 
dated Dedham, December 31, 1807. 

"When I read your letter of the 19th (received fifteen minutes 
since) my heart suffered unusual pangs, and I could not suppress some 
tears. Had I been alone, perhaps I should have been everything but 
calm and fearless, as you say a man should be now. Had I no chil- 
dren, I should not weep, nor, it may be, even sigh, to see a people carry 
chains that has proved so unworthy liberty as ours. But some allow- 
ance must be made for them. There is no base thought or propensity 
among them that has not been courted and nursed into a habit in order 
that some base man might rise upon it. If Jefferson had to bear the 
chains he has forged for us all, I should be calm at the prospect before 
us. Slavery would not degrade its friends. As to writing for our 
papers, it should be done, and according to the hints you suggest. For 
a fortnight past I have been too sick to write. Attempting to see 
company in my parlor at dinner, I left my chamber and took cold. 
It threatened once more to settle on my lungs. After blisters and a 
variety of defensive measures, I have recovered to the state of my usual 
debility, where I must rest till I can ride, which will not be much be- 
fore May. I will try and do my feeble part. Your exertions merit 
praise, and I have no doubt obtain it. The speech on the gunboats 
was all that it should be. Accende animumfamcE venientis aniore." 

Probably the infirm state of Mr. Ames's health gave a darker 
tinge to the prospect of public affairs as it lay before his mind's 
eye, than it might have done to a more healthful vision ; but his 
emotions were only more intense in degree than those of the 
Federalists generally, not different in character. Mr. Ames sunk 
rapidly from this time forward, and died on the 4th of July next 
ensuing. 

A circumstance very painful to Mr. Quincy, in his private as 
well as his public capacity, was the change which Mr. John 
Quincy Adams made at this time in his political relations. He 
had, up to the time of the Embargo, acted with the Federalists, by 
whom he had been elected to the Senate ; but when Mr. Jeffer- 
son's Embargo Message produced the rapid act of legislation we 
have seen, Mr. Adams joined himself to the majority which hur- 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 123 

ried through the measure. " The President," he said, "has recom- 
mended this measure on his high responsibility. I would not 
consider, I would not deliberate, I would act. Doubtless the 
President possesses such further information as will justify the 
measure." And from that time forward he acted uniformly with 
the Administration. This change of sides naturally excited 
great indignation in the party he had left, and his conduct was 
attributed to the basest and most sordid motives. The leading 
Massachusetts Federalists regarded his course with anger min- 
gled with contempt, which many of them continued to entertain 
as long as they lived. This ill opinion, however, Mr. Adams cor- 
dially reciprocated, and there was certainly no love lost between 
them. But Mr. Quincy never entered into these extreme views 
as to Mr. Adams's course. To his wife he speaks thus temper- 
ately on the subject : — 

"I am glad you enter into no asperities such as you hear upon the 
character of John Quincy Adams. There are many reasons why we 
should be very cautious on that head. Particularly as I have made a 
most inveterate stand in secret session in the House against a question 
on which he was in favor, and as warmly, in the Senate. This matter 
is not yet before the public. But I am anxious that, however we may 
differ politically, as far as it depends on me it may never terminate 
in any personal difference. I beg you, therefore, to be more than 
ordinarily cautious on that subject. He is, I fully believe, as perfectly 
my friend as ever he was. He has just as good a right to his sentiments 
as I have to mine. He differs from his political friends, and is abused. 
Let us not join in the contumely. It can do us no good, and may do 
him some hurt. And, possibly, should any indiscretion fall from us, it 
may be attributed by the world, as it certainly wiU be by his friends, 
to rivalry, or worse motives. ' To avoid even the appearance of evil,' 
is as wise a political as it is a moral maxim." 

From this letter it appears that the Boston Federalists had 
conceived suspicions of Mr. Adams's fidelity to their party even 
before he openly left them. In letters written after the embargo 
had been made public, Mr. Quincy says : — 

" Dana and Goodrich,* of Connecticut, are the only men who agree 

• Chauncey Goodrich, born, 1759; graduated at Yale College, 1776; a lawyer 
of eminence; Representative from 1795 to 1801; Senator from 1807 to 1813: 
«ied, 1815. 



124 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

with me concerning the course of John Quincy Adams. His devia- 
tion from his friends is perfectly reconcilable with the peculiar texture 
of his mind, without resorting to any suspicion of his political integ- 
rity. I neither join in, nor sanction, any asperities about him 

With respect to Adams, he has a right to his opinions, as we to ours. 
It will be my lot to differ from him, — possibly to oppose him publicly. 
I shall not court the occasion, nor shall I shrink from it. I am only 
anxious to be in such a situation that even he shall recognize nothing 
personal, or of vulgar ambition, in my difference from him in my polit- 
ical sentiments. I mean to identify myself with no set of men. I 
shall do my duty openly, virtuously, and as intelligently as Heaven 
permits me. I shall not seek to please by any sacrifice of my real 
opinion. I shall not fear to offend any, if a just view of my country's 
interest obliges me to declare truths which will have that effect. This 
course of conduct may not secure me place, of which I am less than 
ever solicitous, but it will secure me that sense of a right to personal 
honor of which I am daily more and more solicitous. Let us cultivate 
in our own minds a strict sense of duty. Towards others let us extend 
a candid construction. 

" Concerning Colonel Pickering's letter, I shall state my opinion to 
you when we meet ; I have not time now to examine it in all its rela- 
tions. The nature of our political institutions makes such divisions 
inevitable among men. Let us judge not party judgment; be very 
just to others; be as true to ourselves. My object is, hot to keep the 
peace, nor to acquire honors, but to place myself in such a state of 
mind and of political relations as may enable me to be of most ser- 
vice to my country." 

This letter of Colonel Pickering was addressed to Governor 
Sullivan of Massachusetts, " exhibiting to his constituents a view 
of the danger of an unnecessary and ruinous war," and set- 
ting forth the extreme Fedeial opinions with great force and 
clearness. This letter Governor Sullivan refused to lay before 
the Legislature, according to the request upon its face, on the 
ground that it was " a seditious and disorganizing production " ; 
but it soon found its way into the papers, and was printed as a 
pamphlet. To this Mr. Adams responded in another letter ad- 
dressed to Mr. Harrison Gray Otis, in which he attacked the 
positions of Colonel Pickering with all the vij^or and with much 
of the acrimony which generally characterized his polemical 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 125 

writings. He virtually admitted that the embargo was aimed 
rather at England than at France. " The most enormous infrac- 
tions of our rights (by France) have been more in menace than 
accomplishment. The alarm was justly great, the anticipation 
threatening, but the amount of actual injury small." The Berlin 
and Milan Decrees he considers to be occasioned by the maritime 
pretensions of Great Britain ; he attributes to this power the de- 
sign of " recovering their lost dominion in America " ; and the 
inference which the Federalists drew from the tone of the whole 
pamphlet was, that he meant to imply that they were not disin- 
clined, to say the least, to have the design succeed. It is to this 
letter that Mr. Quincy alludes in writing to his wife. 

" April 5. — Before this time you will have read the letter of John 
Quincy Adams, in wliich you cannot but perceive the gauntlet to be 
thrown to a part of our friends, and that the consequences will be an 
inveterate party hostility. No man in the nation is situated in relation 
to the combatants as I am. The part I shall be called to act will be 
delicate and no less difficult. My desire at present is to place myself 
so that in nothing I may appear to take a personal part in the contro- 
versy As yet both gentlemen are very well disposed toward 

me. With J. Q. Adams I have had an eclaircisxernent of four hours, 
and he has asked another. I understand him perfectly, — better, I 
believe, than he does himself, in this instance. Mr. Pickering lives in 
the same house with me, and we are in the habit of very friendly inter- 
course, if not altogether confidential, yet bordering upon it. I will do 
my duty to both. Above all, I will not fail in a higher duty, which I 

owe to myself and my country, when the occasion calls My 

mind has been grievously agitated by the flying to pieces of men 
whose natural interests and stand in society are in many respects simi- 
lar. But such incidents are to be expected, and we ought to use them, 
and the circumstances resulting from them, to the best moral and in- 
tellectual account 

" I deem the letter of John Q. Adams to Otis unfortunate, but it 
was not unanticipated. I subscribe entirely to your reflections on its 
style. 

" I have always known Adams ; Pickering not intimately until this 
winter ; but the more I know of them, and the more I compare them 
together, the more I am impressed with the idea how unsuited they 
are ever to co-operate. Never were two substances more completely 
adapted to make each other explode. Fire and gunpowder are noth- 



126 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ing to them, when brought into opposition. In this instance it will 
occasion some party abruption, scorch many, blow up the temporary 
influence of one or the other, — of which it is uncertain, and more de- 
pendent on events not within the control of either than on anything 
in the intrinsic merits of their respective opinions. How to allay, how 
to control, how to direct, those events and eiFects, is the question which 
their best friends and those of their country have to study." 

My father's personal relations with Mr. Adams were never in- 
terrupted nor altered by the wide divergence of their political 
opinions and party connections during the fierce dissensions of 
the coming years. 

The Opposition had all along considered it a strong proof of 
Mr. Jefferson's Gallican leanings that, while every document that 
could expose the British violations of our neutral rights was 
spread before Congress and blazoned to the world, a suspicious 
reticence was observed as to the equally insolent infractions of 
them committed by the French under the Berlin and Milan De- 
crees. It was particularly desired by them to obtain possession 
of the letter of M. Champagny, Bonaparte's Minister of Foreign 
Relations, to General Armstrong, the United States Minister at 
the French Court, in regard to them, and this wish was as reso- 
lutely I'esisted by the Administration. Mr. Quincy made two 
motions calling for the despatches which would contain it, — one on 
the 26th of February, 1808, and the other on the 14th of March, 
the last enforced with a strong but temperate exposition of the 
reasonableness of the request, — both of which were voted down 
by large majorities. This speech, although the motion it sup- 
ported was negatived, undoubtedly had an effect upon public 
opinion, and upon the fears of the Administration party as to the 
consequences of a continued refusal. About a fortnight after- 
wards, on motion of Jolm Randolpli, the request was made, and, 
after a little delay, complied with on the 2d of April. The next 
day Mr. Quincy wrote to his wife as follows : — 

" We yesterday forced out the great letter of Champagny to Arm- 
strong, in which, by the order of the Emperor, he modestly tells him 
that his Majesty considers the United States at war with Great Britain, 
and that he shall confiscate all the ships he has seized, unless we make 
a declaration of it ! The languacre of both nations is now before the 



SPEECH ON THE EMBARGO. 127 

public, and it must declare its will at the coming elections, whence 
alone salvation must spring. 

" By the way, tell Mrs. Guild * that this Champagny, now the suc- 
cessor of Talleyrand, is undoubtedly the same person she knew in 
1780 or 1782. He was an officer in one of the fleets which lay off 
Boston Harbor, and Mrs. Guild will remember him as one of those 
who were accustomed to visit freely at my grandfather's when she was 
a young unmarried lady living at home with him. 

" Obtaining Champagny's letter confirms our apprehension con- 
cerning the designs of Bonaparte. The party of the Administration 
stood their ground two days, voting down every motion for its publica- 
tion. On Tuesday they began to waver, and in the evening, it is un- 
derstood, a deputation waited on Jefferson, who kindly relieved them 
hy sending in his permijfsion ; and then all this supple herd got rid of 
their scruples, and voted unanimously to publish. I have never seen 
mortification and chagrin so strongly depicted in the countenances of 
any men as in theirs on this occasion." 

The last legislative action of importance before the adjourn- 
ment of Congress was an act originating in the Senate, author- 
izing the President, in the event of peace between the European 
belligerents during the recess, or of such a change of measures in 
regard to neutral commerce as should make that of the United 
States sufficiently safe, to suspend the Embargo in whole or in 
part. Mr. Quincy made one of his best speeches on this occa- 
sion, in which he predicted exactly what would be the effect of 
the Embargo upon foreign powers, and especially upon England. 
His words, as the historian Hildreth says of this speech, " were 
too prophetic." He did not oppose investing the President with 
the power to suspend the Embargo ; he wished to enlarge that 
power, so as to enable him to do so without being limited by the 
provisions of the bill. He feared that the pressure of the Em- 
bargo might produce such a danger of domestic insurrection that 
it might be necessary, for the peace and security of the nation, to 
suspend the measure, or, at any rate, to leave the hope of a possi- 
ble suspension ; while he looked upon the happening of either of 

* Mrs. Guild was the daughter of Colonel Josiah Quincy, by the second of 
hia three marriages. She married Benjamin Guild, of the Class of 1769 in 
Hiirvard University; afterwards tutor in that institution. The late Mr Benja- 
min Guild, of the Suffolk hwc, was their son. 



128 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCT 

the conditions in the bill as chimerical, and morally impossible to 
occur. After asserting the constitutional power of Congress to 
give the President this power, he said : — 

" A whole people is suffering under a most grievous oppression. All 
the business of the nation is deranged ; all its active hopes frustrated ; 
all its industry stagnant. The scene we are now witnessing is alto- 
gether unparalleled in history. The tales of fiction have no parallel 
for it. A new writ is executed upon a whole people. Not, indeed, the 
old monarchical writ of ne exeat regno, but a new republican writ, 
ne exeat republlca. Freemen, in the pride of their liberty, have re- 
straints imposed upon them which despotism never exercised. They 
are fastened down to the soil by the enchantment of law ; and their 
property vanishes in the very process of preservation. It is impossible 
for us to separate and leave such a people, at such a moment as this, 
without administering some opiate to their distress. Some hope, how- 
ever distant, of alleviation must be proffered, — some prospect of relief 
opened. Otherwise we may justly fear the result of such an unexam- 
pled pressure. Who can say what counsels despair might suggest, or 
what weapons it might furnish ? 

"In recommending that a discretion, not limited by events, should 
be vested in the Executive, I can have no personal wish to augment his 
power. He is no political friend of mine. I deem it essential, both 
for the tranquillity of the people and for the success of the measure, 
that such a power should be committed to him. Neither personal nor 
party feelings shall prevent me from advocating a measure in my esti- 
mation salutary to the most important interests of the country. It is 
true that I am among the earliest and the most uniform opponents of 
the embargo. I have seen nothing to vary my original belief that its 
policy was equally cruel to individuals and mischievous to society. 
As a weapon to control foreign powers, it seemed to me dubious in its 
effect, uncertain in its operation, — of all possible machinery, the most 
difficult to set up and the most expensive to maintain. 

" But the system is adopted. May it be successful ! It is not to 
diminish, but to increase, the chance of that success, that I urge that a 
discretion, unlimited by events, shall be vested in the Executive. I 
shall rejoice if this great miracle be worked. I shall congratulate my 
country if the experiment shall prove that the Old World can be 
controlled by fear of being excluded from the commerce of the New 



SPEECH ON THE EMBARGO. 129 

Happy shall I be if on the other side of this dark valley of the shadow 
of death through which our commercial hopes are passing, shall be 
found regions of future safety and felicity. 

" I do indeed believe that the commerce of the United States is 
important enough to France and Great Britain to incline both those 
nations to grant us for its continuance many and great commercial 
privileges. But that it is so consequential to either as that for its en- 
joyment the one could be tempted to forego a policy which has for its 
object to crush the only obstacle in its way to universal empire, or the 
other induced to abandon a system adopted as the only means for the 
preservation of its national existence, now in peril on all sides, I con- 
fess I am very far from believing. 

" We are but a young nation. The United States are scarcely yet 
hardened into the bone of manhood. Our whole national existence 
has been nothing but an uninterrupted course of prosperity. The mis- 
eries of the Revolutionary war were but as the pangs of parturition. 
The experience of that period was of a nature not to be very useful 
after our nation had acquired an individual form, and a manly, con- 
stitutional stamina. It is to be feared we have grown giddy with 
good fortune, — attributing the greatness of our prosperity to our own 
wisdom, rather than to a course of events and a guidance over which 
we had no influence. It is to be feared that we are now entering that 
school of adversity the first blessing of which is to chastise an overween- 
ing conceit of ourselves. A nation mistakes its relative consequence 
when it thinks its countenance, or its intercourse, or its existence, all- 
important to the rest of the world. There is scarcely any people, 
and none of any weight in the society of nations, which does not pos- 
sess within its own sphere all that is essential to its existence. An 
individual who should retire from conversation with the world for the 
purpose of taking vengeance on it for some real or imaginary wrong, 
would soon find himself grievously mistaken. Notwithstanding the 
delusions of self-flattery, he would certainly be taught that the world 
was moving along just as well after his dignified retirement as it did 
while he intermeddled with its concerns. The fate of a nation which 
should make a similar trial of its consequence to other nations would 
be the same. The intercourse of human life has its basis in a natural 
reciprocity, which always exists, although the vanity of nations, as well 
as of individuals, will often suggest to inflated fancies, that they give 
more than they gain in the interchange of friendship, of civilities, or 

of business." 

6* I 



130 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

All attempts of the minority to invest Mr. Jefferson with abso- 
lute power over the Embargo failed, and the bill passed as it came 
from the Senate, after an excited debate of thirteen hours, by sixty 
yeas to thirty-six nays. The motives of this self-denying policy 
on the part of the Administration were, probably, partly the ex- 
cellent one of never doing what your adversaries Avish you to 
do, and partly an unwillingness to admit the possibility of any 
contingency which should justify the suspension of the Embargo, 
excepting the reduction of Great Britain to the necessity of re- 
pealing her Orders in Council, and abandoning the right of 
search and of impressment through its pacific compulsion. It is 
hardly necessary to say that Mr. Jefferson was not called upon to 
exercise the limited powers which, only, he was willing to ac- 
cept. 



SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 131 



CHAPTER VII. 

1808. 

bociETY OF Washington. — Acquaintances there. — Mr. Erskine and 
J.Ir. Rose. — Mr. Gardenier and his Duel with BIr. Campbell. — Dis- 
comforts OF Congress. — Adjournment. — Summer at Quincy. — The 
Embargo at Home and Abroad. — President Adams on the Causes 
OF the French Eevolution. — Return to Washington. — Keeps House 
with Senator Lloyd. — Their Way of Life. — First and Second 
Speeches on Foreign Relations. — Effect on the Administration 
Members. — Letters from Mr. Adams and Mr. Otis. 

DURING this session Mr. Quincy went very little into 
Washington society. Society was not very attractive 
there at the best, and was then made even less agreeable than 
usual by the agitation of the question of removing the seat of 
government to Philadelphia. Of course this proposition was very 
distasteful to the inhabitants, most of whom had entered into 
speculations in real estate in Washington, in the faith that it 
was to be the permanent capital. " I take no part in these in- 
trigues," he wrote to his wife ; " but if called upon to vote, I fear 
it will be my lot to wound our good friends Tayloe and Peter." 
Jefferson and Madison threw all their influence in favor of 
Washington, and the main Southern vote went in the same 
direction, and yet the proposition for removal was defeated by 
only two votes. So violent was the local feeling on the subject, 
that Mr. Sloan of New Jersey, who made the original motion, 
stated in his place that he had been threatened with assassina- 
tion if he persevered in it. Of Washington as a place to live 
in, Mr. Quincy thus writes to his wife : — 

" I have many visitors from Boston. They have but one sentiment 
of disappointment and disgust. The place is more indifferent than r 
ever, and my system of receiving none of the attentions of the inhab- 
itants has proved no loss, but a great relief to me. Its society has 
exceeded its ordinary measure of dnlness, and since the question of 



182 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

removal has been agitated, it has been distracted with ever)' species 
of personality and violence. All which I have, to my great satisfaction, 
escaped." 

" It was my habit," he says in another place, " to refuse all invita- 
tions except those I thought my official duty required me to accept. 
I dined during this session with Mr. Erskine, the British Minister, with 
Mr. Tayloe, and Mr. Peter (of Georgetown), where I was introduced 
to Mr. Rose, a special messenger sent by the British government to 
ours. His appearance and manners were pleasing, exhibiting a degree 
of modesty mingled with evident knowledge of the world. He was ex- 
tremely fluent, and showed a general knowledge of European politics. 
I was very favorably impressed by his language and demeanor. Judge 
Washington urged upon me a visit to Mount Vernon, and offered to 
Bend his carriage for me to Alexandria; but my engagements did not 
allow of it." 

Mr. Tayloe resided on a fine estate in the neighborhood of 
Washington, where his son, INIi'. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, a grad- 
uate of Harvard University in 1815, now lives. Mr. Peter was 
married to one of the granddaugiiters of Mrs. Washington, be- 
tween whom and my father and mother there existed a life-long 
friendship. Mr. Erskine was the Honorable David Montague 
Erskine, the eldest son of the great Lord Erskine. Being in 
this country at the beginning of the century, I believe as an at- 
tache to the British Legation, he married in 1800 Miss Frances 
Cadwallader of Philadelphia, daughter of General John Cadwal- 
lader. On the accession of the Greuville ministry and the eleva- 
tion of Lord Erskine to the peerage, he was returned to Parlia- 
ment instead of his father for Portsmouth, but soon resigned his 
seat on his appointment to the post of Minister at Washington. 
Of his adventures with Mr. Madison and Mr, Gallatin, and of 
the disgrace into which he fell with his government because of 
them, I shall give some account in their proper place. After his 
recall in 1809, he was not employed for many years. In 1825, 
after his father's death, he was appointed Minister to Stuttgart, 
and afterwards to Munich, which place he held till 1843. His 
American marriage was a happy and fruitful one, — fifteen chil- 
dren being born of it, of whom ten or twelve yet survive. Lady 
Erskine died in 1843, and Lord Erskine was married again 



ACQUAINTANCES AT WASHINGTON. 133 

twice He died in 1855, in his eightieth year. Mr. Rose, after 
wards the Rt. Hon. Sir George Henry Rose, G. C. H., was 
the son of the Rt. Hon. George Rose, who was Treasurer of 
the Navy and Vice-President of the Board of Trade under 
Mr. Pitt, of whom he was the personal friend and devoted par- 
tisan. Sir George H. Rose entered diplomatic life very early, 
and was member for Southampton in 1807, at the time of his 
appointment to his special mission to the United States. He was 
afterwards Minister to Munich and Berlin, and on his fathei-'s 
death, in 1818, succeeded him in the lucrative office of Clerk of 
the Parliaments, which he held till 1844. He died in 1855 at a 
good old age. The celebrated General Sir Hugh Rose, distin- 
guished for military successes in Syria, the Crimea, and India, 
who received the thanks of Parliament in 1859 for his services 
in suppressing the Sepoy mutiny, and was raised to the peerage 
last year, 1866, by the title of Lord Strathnairn, is the son of Sir 
George. 

Mr. Quincy's time outside the Capitol was the more fully oc- 
cupied from the extraordinary conscientiousness which prevented 
him from writing his letters in the House, which was then as 
now the general habit of the members. He gave strictly all his 
time during the sessions to the day's work, and did all his writing 
at his lodgings. He was almost, if not quite, the only member 
who was so scrupulous as to the time of the public. It seems, 
according to one of his stories about John Randolph, that even 
Mr. Speaker would sometimes while away the weary time with 
his correspondents when he could snatch a prudent hour. Ran- 
dolph was speaking one day, and Mr. Speaker thought he was 
safe for an hour or two, and began privily to indite a letter. It 
was not long before the hawk's eye of Randolph spied out the 
inattention, and he stopped short in the middle of a sentence. 
Mr. Speaker was presently aroused by the stillness, and, suppos- 
ing that Randolph had done speaking, he returned to his duty, 
and, seeing the eccentric Virginian still on his legs, inquired 
whether the honorable gentleman had finished his speech. " Mr. 
Speaker," returned Randolph, in his high faisetto voice, and point- 
ing his long forefinger at his victim, — " Mr. Speaker, I was 



134 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

waiting until you had finished that letter ! " It is safe to say 
that the Speaker never again relaxed in his attention to that 
particular orator. 

Among the new friends Mr. Quincy made at this session was 
Barent Gardenier, of New York, a self-made, self-educated man, 
of fiery temperament, reckles.** courage, and fluent speech. My 
father had a warmly aff"ectionate regard for him, and loved to tell 
of his sayings and doings. He says of him in a letter to my 
mother : " He is a man of wit and desultory reading, accustomed 
to the skirmishing and electioneering violence of New York. 
He brings it all into debate in an honest, unguarded, inconsider- 
ate manner, very well calculated to inflame the party passions 
opposed to him, but not to make converts ; but, withal, he is an 
excellent fellow." On the 20th of February, 1808, Mr. Gardenier 
made a fierce onslaught on the Administration in a speech on the 
Embargo. He charged them with base subserviency to Bona- 
parte, and taunted them in the most galling terms with not daring 
to let the people know their real designs, or the true condition of 
the nation. This attack occasioned a violent commotion among 
the friends of Mr. Jefferson, and a scene ensued not unlike some 
that later Congresses have witnessed, as when John Quincy 
Adams asked what he should do with a petition purporting to 
come from slaves, or when the Haverhill petition was presented 
praying for a peaceful dissolution of the Union. He was fre- 
quently interrupted, called to order, and even threatened with 
expulsion. And by way of answer, he was assailed with such a 
storm of personal abuse, that he considered it necessary to call 
out Mr. George W. Campbell, a native of Scotland, but long a 
resident of Tennessee.* Of this duel and its consequences, my 
father gave the following account at the time in his letters to my 
mother : — 

" February 26. — Gardenier and Campbell went out yesterday for 
the purpose of refreshing, or finishing, their honor at the ends of their 

* Mr. Campbell was brought to America in infancy, having been born in 
Scotland in 1768. He was Representative from 1803 to 1809, and was after- 
wards Senator, Secretary of the Treasury, and Minister to Russia. He died in 
1848. 



MR. GAEDENIER AND HIS DUEL WITH MR. CAMPBELL. 135 

pistols ; Eppes (of Virginia) being second to Campbell, White (of 
Delaware), of the Senate, to Gardenier. But the populace of George- 
town got knowledge of the affair, and were so anxious to see the sport, 
that, to the utter astonishment of the parties, they found, it is said, a 
hundred and fifty persons, men, women, and children, on the spot 
marked out for the bloody arena, who had collected with no desire to 
prevent, but to share in the pleasure of the spectacle. As the parties 
had no inclination to fight in public, they were obliged to retire. It 
is supposed to be utterly impossible to prevent this termination of the 
affair, although we all regret the circumstance deeply." 

^^ March 3, 1808. — Poor Gardenier fell yesterday in a duel with 
Campbell. His wound was at first thought to be mortal, but strong 
hopes now exist that he will escape a fatal result. They fought at 
Bladensburg. I visited him with Dana of Connecticut. The scene 
was heart-rending. The physicians begin to hope that the ball has not 
passed through the lungs, but it is a most critical wound. He is in 
the family of Mr. Lowndes, a private gentleman on whose grounds the 
battle was fought, who happens to be a violent Federalist, as are sev- 
eral families in his neighborhood, and none of them seem to regard the 
trouble this circumstance is likely to occasion them. 

" The friends of Gardenier detailed themselves to watch with him, 
and with Pitkin of Connecticut I attended him on the night of the 
3d of March. His recovery is devoutly to be wished, as he has a 
wife and three children dependent on him. He would be a sad vic- 
tirii to the Moloch honor. The ball entered his armpit and came 
out at his back, lodging in the left shoulder-blade. His sympathy 
with his family during his illness has been very exquisite. Nothing 
could prevent him from writing to his wife daily, since the wound has 
been pronounced not mortal. 

" ' I shudder,' he said to me, ' at the gulf I have passed. For myself 
I care but little, but I have a wife whom I love, and, what is a higher 
consideration at such a moment as this, who loves me as much as one 
being can love another. I realize dreadfully what would have been 
the distress brought on my family had this wound been mortal. My 
children would have been doomed to poverty, neglect, and forgetful- 
ness.' Gardenier is a man of excellent natural heart, but abounding 
in the chivalrous notions which prevail in New York, — good-natured, 
thoughtless, possessing wit, and not at all scrupulous in exercising it. 
In the midst of suffering his wit did not for a moment leave him. He 
made us smile whenever he broke through the laws of his physicians. 
As he turned himself with great pain in his bed, he said, ' Well, I 



136 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

have this comfort, Congress will certainly grant me a pension for 
known wounds received in the service of the United States.'" 

Mr. Gardenier was a native of Kinderhook, and all his educa- 
tion, excepting what he gave himself, he received in the common 
schools of that village. He practised law at Kingston, Ulster 
County, with much reputation and success. " His handsome 
person, pleasant voice, and easy flow of language reraarkahle for 
its simplicity," to use the words of an eminent gentleman of 
Kingston, who remembers him, " made him indeed a most at- 
tractive and successful speaker." * On his return to New York 
after his spirited though unsuccessful campaign against Mr. 
Campbell, he was honored by his party with a public recep- 
tion. He represented his district in the Tenth and Eleventh 
Congresses, 1807-11, and on leaving Congress removed to the 
city of New York with the purpose of practising his profession 
there. But the attractions of politics overcame those of the law, 
and his success was not answerable to the promise of his earlier 
professional life. At one time he was editor of a Federal news- 
paper in New York. He died there in 1818. One of his daugh- 
ters married the well-known writer and diplomatist, Mr. Theo- 
dore S. Fay, formerly our Minister to Switzerland. 

The end of the long session at length approached. Congress 
had not yet learned to protract its sittings until midsummer, and 
the middle of April was thought late in those primeval days. 
Early in March Mr. Quiucy wrote to his wife : — 

^'^ March 10. — In Congress we have nothing to do, and do nothing. 
We are tired of one another and Jefferson of us. Intrigues for the 
Presidency are the order of the day, and the only business on hand. 
The only difficulty to be surmounted is, that those who voted for the 
Embargo do not like to go home with it on, and yet they dare not 
take it off. AVeakness and ignorance are full of fears, and we have a 
plentiful harvest of both. No person here seems to direct. No one 
pretends to see the course, or to be able to preside over the destinies, 
of the House or the nation. We meet and adjourn, do ordinary business, 
wrangle, and then the majority retire to intrigue for the Presidency." 

* Mr. A. Bruyn Hasbrouck, formerly President of Rutgers College, New Jer- 
sey, to whom I am indebted for these particulars touching my father's old 
friend, through the kind mediation of Mr. J. V. L. Pruyn, M. C, of Albany. 



SUMMER AT QUINCY. 137 

'^ March 15. — From all parts of the country discontent with the 
measures of government begins to extend itself, and disgust with Mr. 
Jefferson more openly to be expressed. Violent passions toward each 
other fill the adherents of Madison and Clinton. Virginia is torn into 
factions between the friends of the former and those of Monroe, — who 
has unquestionably made a coalition with Clinton." 

In another letter, of an earlier date, he thus speaks of some of 
the other discomforts of his assiduous attendance on the sittings 
of the House. All he can give her, he tells his wife, in return 
for her excellent letters are — 

" these dribbling communications strained through the interstices of a 
brain kept in constant tension from the wire-drawing machinery of 
political demagogues and philosophical charlatans. The heat of the 
Capitol is noxiou and insupportable, and it has affected me to faint- 
ing. One of the flues of the furnace is behind my chair. I have at 
length prevailed on the Speaker to forbid our subterranean fires. 
The effect produced by them is that upon an oyster baked in a Dutch 
oven. The daily squabbles on our democratic floor disgust me too 
much to dwell on. Of books I read nothing, and v:hen I rcant pleasure 
I think of you and my children."' 

On the 25 ih of April, 1808, this eventful and stormy session 
closed, — the forerunner of others yet more stormy and more 
eventful. The next day Mr. Quincy took coach for Baltimore, 
with his friends Messrs. Tallmadge, Pickering, Hillhouse, Good- 
rich, and Ely,* — 

(Six precious souls, and all agog 
To dash through thick and thin !) 

as he himself parenthesizes, and thence proceeded to Boston with 
the deliberate speed which marked the travelling of that day. 

He spent the next summer, as usual, at his country-seat. His 
journals of these months are brief; but they show that he did 
not relax in his habitual industry. His studies seem to have 
been chiefly directed to the portions of French history relating 
to the Huguenot persecutions. He began also a critical compari- 
son of Gilbert "Wakefield's " Improved Version of the New Tes- 

* William Ely graduated at Yale College, 1787; Representative from Massa- 
chusetts frDra 1805 to 1815; died, 1817. 



138 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUIXCY. 

tnment" with the original, in which he appears to my laical 
apprehension to have shown considerable exegetical acumen. 
But the cares of this world and thb deceitfulness of politics did 
not permit him to push his inquiries very far in this direction. 
The Embargo was the topic which would persistently thrust itself 
on his notice above and through all secular or theological studies. 
It was the nightmare of the New England States, which chilled 
the life-blood of their industry, and checked its vital current with 
hopeless torpor. It pressed upon all classes, paralyzing at once 
tiie capital of the rich and the day-labor of the poor. Ships 
rotted at the wharves ; handicrafts and industries dependent upon 
commerce perished with it ; agriculture felt the general distress in 
the diminished demand for its productions ; all trades and occu- 
pations suffered by sympathy with the destruction of the chief 
source of wealth and prosperity. The shadow of the Embargo 
fell upon every household, and darkened every fireside. Tlie 
irritation of the popular mind was rendered yet more bitter by 
the intrusions into private affairs through the despotic powers 
lodged in the hands of the collectors and the temptations held out 
to the perjury of informers, by the supplementary laws to prevent 
and punish evasions of the Act under pretence of the coasting- 
trade. Altogether, the people of the New England States were 
growing into a dangerous state of discontent with the govern- 
ment, and the lovers of peace and good order feared that their 
patience might give way, and they refuse to be ruined quietly for 
the satisfaction of the political theories of Mr. Jefferson. It was 
a state of things which might well absorb the thoughts of every 
reflecting man with any stake in the country, and especially of 
every one called to take an active part in its affairs. 

In the mean time, the effect of the Embargo abroad had not 
been such as its promoters had hoped. The English merchants 
in the American trade, indeed, remonstrated against the Orders 
in Council, and petitioned Parliament for their repeal, and their 
prayer was supported by the Whig opposition; but without ef- 
fect. The Orders were sustained by large majorities, and heavy 
transit duties laid on cotton and tobacco and other articles of 
American production that might pass through England in urvitral 



THE EMBARGO AT HOME AND ABROAD. 139 

vessels under these Orders. At the same time Bonaparte's inva- 
sion of the Peninsula had destroyed the old Spanish and Portu- 
guese colonial systems, and, as the colonies adhered to the royal 
families, the commerce of those countries and their dependencies 
was opened to the British merchants, while the interdict upon our 
ships gave them a monopoly of it. This, probably, more than 
compensated for the loss of our trade after the first disturbance 
of business consequent upon it was over. The English ministry 
refused to repeal the Orders in return for our repeal of the Em- 
bargo, which Mr. Pinkney proposed by Mr. Jefferson's directions, 
and the refusal was conveyed by Mr. Canning, the Secretary for 
Foreign Affairs, in a letter barbed with the bitterest sarcasm. If 
the measure were meant as retaliation for invasions of neutral 
rights, it should have been aimed at France, the original author 
of them, and not, virtually, at England alone. If it were a mere 
municipal regulation, England had no complaint to make of it. 
She had no hostility to America, and the ministry were " anxious 
to do all in their power, short of seeming to deprecate the Em- 
bargo as a hostile measure, to facilitate the removal of a restric- 
tion so very inconvenient to the American people." And he 
ended with the hope " that the present experiment would teach 
that Great Britain was not so absolutely dependent on the trade 
of America as to be obliged to court a commercial intercourse." 

On the other hand, tlie instinct of Bonaparte discerned the 
friendly animus towards himself which was concealed under the 
pretended impartiality of the terms of the Act. He made no 
objection to being joined in the preamble with England, and ex- 
pressed his cordial approbation of the measure ; and to show his 
readiness to co-operate with it, he issued the Bayonne Decree 
of April 17, 1808, by which he ordered the seizure and confisca- 
tion of all American ships in France, or which might arrive 
there. And when General Armstrong remonstrated against such 
an activity of friendship, Bonaparte assured him that it was in- 
tended merely as a friendly assistance to the American govern- 
ment in enforcing the Embargo, since no American ships could 
be lawfully at sea after its passage, and any claiming that char- 
acter must either be British ships in disguise, or, at any rate. 



140 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

they must have " denationalized " themselves by yielding to the 
Orders in Council, and so be lawful prize by the Milan Decree. 

The oppressive effects of the Embargo were not confined to the 
Northern States, as its Southern supporters had supposed they 
would be. It recoiled on the grain-raising and planting States so 
as to make itself severely felt by them. This was particularly 
the case with the Southern Atlantic States, — the cotton-growing, 
rice-plantiug, and tobacco-raising districts, which largely depended 
for their gains on an unrestricted trade. To this fact Major 
Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina bears witness, in a letter 
dated Santee, May 25, 1808. 

" We are here smarting under the effects of the Embargo, 

and there are some among us who, in spite of the eloquent address of 
your Professor of Rhetoric,* cannot relish this mode of defending 
neutral rights, and still less approve of the system of politics which, 
by the confession of their own party, has left to our Administration no 
alternative but war (for which they are so evidently unprepared) or 

this most ruinous proceeding To the philosopher who coolly 

tries these tremendous experiments on the welfare of a deluded peo- 
ple, neither the failure of his projects nor the evils of unsuccessful 
warfare (should such be the consequence) would prove so calamitous 
as to those who, quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur. To him the road to 
Carter's Mountain is as practicable as it was in 1781, from whence, on 
the return of better days, he might again descend to persuade the peo- 
ple, in a communication to another Mazzei, that the man who had 
been most instrumental in preserving his country was at the head of a 
league to deprive that country of its liberty." 

The following are a few extracts from my father's journal 
during this summer. The opinion of the venerable ex-President 
Adams as to the veto power, though very characteristic of him, 
has hardly been confirmed by subsequent events. They have 
rather justified the wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in 
providing the check they did against its abuse. 

'■'■September 6. — Dr. Morse f dined with me. Visited President 

* Mr. John Quincy Adams, then Professor of Rhetoric in Harvard Univer- 
sity. 

t Doubtless tlie Ecv. Dr. Jedediah Morse (Y. C. 1783) minister at Charles- 
town. A very prominent man, politically and theologically, fifty years ago; 



PRESIDKNT ADAMS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. lil 

Adams. A. regretted the want of an absolute negative in the Execu- 
tive in all the Constitutions. He had urged it in the Legishnture of 
Massachusetts, but Tbeophilus Parsons. Jackson, Lowell, and other Es- 
sex gentlemen would not injure their popularity. If it had succeeded, 
it would have been, probably, adopted into that of the United States. 
' For what,' said he, ' is the Constitution of the United States but that 
of Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland. There is not a feature 
in it which cannot be found in one or the other." 

^'■September 15. — Ex-President Adams visited me. I remarked on 
the number of memoirs of French political actors of the seventeenth 
century which was possessed by the present age. ' The next,' said he, 
' will have as many as ours. In less than a hundred years there will 
be as many memoirs of the French Revolution, not one of which will 
assign its true cause. This was in fact the same that exists in every 
country and period of time, — the jealousy and envy of the second 
families of the first. The great nobles wished to depress the House of 
Bourbon, but when the mobility had got the reins, the nobles found 
their expectation to control them was vain. The Marquis de Lafay- 
ette is very dear to the people of this country, and they will scarcely 
bear the truth relative to his family. But it is unquestionable that the 
pride and ambition of the family of Noailles pulled down the throne 
of Bourbon. The Viscount de Noailles told me himself that, when he 
resigned his charters of nobility to the National Convention, he had 
no other idea than that he was givmg away with one hand what would 
be restored to the other. The family had undoubtedly some obscure 
hope of ameliorating the condition of the people, and perhaps obtain- 
ing some new securities for personal liberty ; but the true source of 
that revolution was the envy and rivalry between that and some other 
great families and that of the Bourbons. 

" The Count de Mercier attended the levee of Louis XVI. in a very 
plain and apparently mean suit, but, the buttons being diamonds, it 
was very costly. Adelaide, the king's aunt, said to him, ' M. le Conite, 
your dress is not sufficiently splendid for the levee.' ' Upon my word, 
Madam,' replied he, ' my coat cost ninety thousand livres.' ' Then, 
M. le Comte,' she retorted, ' you ought to have pinned your tailor's 
receipt on your shoulders.' 

" Mr. Adams said that Mr. Lawrence told him that George Gren- 

but who will be better known now and hereafter as the father of Professor 
Samuel F. B. Morse, to whom the world owes the beneftiction of the electric 
telegraph. Dr. Morse died in 1824. 



142 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ville said to him (Lawrence) that the object of the Stamp Act was 
not merely revenue, ' but,' said he, ' you Americans have spread too 
much canvas upon the ocean.' " 

Congress had adjourned to meet on the 7th of November, and 
towards the end of October Mr. Quincy proceeded to Washing- 
ton, without his wife and family, as at the last session. The fol- 
lowing is his own account of his arrangements for the winter : — 

" On the 26th of October, 1808, I took the stage for Washington, 
James Lloyd,* Senator from Massachusetts, being my companion, — 
having each of us a servant. We had taken a house together on Cap- 
itol Hill, being supplied with all culinary wants from a hotel. It was 
an independent and pleasant arrangement. We arrived at AVashing- 
ton on the 5th of November, and took possession of our home with 
the self-congratulation of ownership. It had been well provided with 
furniture, and all our arrangements proved satisfactory. On the 9th 
of November we called upon Mr. Jefferson. Of course he was not 
communicative with us ; but to his political friends his language was, 
'The only alternative is embargo or war.' 

" My personal situation at Washington was never so eligible, except 
during those sessions when my family was with me. Our house was our 
own ; we were relieved from the noise and intrusion incident to a board- 
ing-house. Lloyd, as a companion, was pleasant and gentlemanly. We 
had our whole time at our own disposal, and were free from interruption. 
We breakfasted at eight ; usually spent half an hour over the breakfast- 
table and in conversation, then to our chambers till eleven. Then till 
three at the Capitol, then to dinner, and after dinner walked till dark. 
After tea in our chambers until the next morning. Such was the usual 
routine. We gave occasionally a bachelor's dinner to friends from Bos- 
ton who visited Washington. To my wife I wrote daily, but to no one 
else. The subjects of debate were such as required great labor, and I 
devoted myself exclusively to my Congressional duties." 

Mr. Quincy had the satisfaction of hearing, soon after his ar- 
rival in Washington, of his re-election, after a very sharp contest, 
by the largest majority ever received by any Representative of 
his district. This approbation of his constituents, and yet more 
the warm approval of his course by his most valued private 

* James Lloyd, born in Boston, 1769; graduated at Harvard University, 1787; 
a successful merchant; Senator from 1808 to 1813, and again from 1822 to 1826. 
He remov^ed to Philadelphia after leaving Congress, and died there in 1831. 



LXTKACTS FROM HIS DIARY. 143 

friends, encouraged and strengthened him for the fierce conflicts 
in which he was about to engage. He began to keep a diary at 
the beginning of the session, but, like too many virtuous begin- 
nings, it soon came to an untimely end. I will give a few ex- 
tracts. 

" November 8. — In the evening Lewis of Virginia called on us. 
He represented the suiferings of that State under the Embargo as ex- 
treme. If continued, it was impossible that the Federalists should not 
receive a great accession of strength." 

^^ November 13. Sunday. — Giles of Virginia and General Smith 
of Maryland called on us. The former wondered that New England 
would not bear the Embargo. He said that in Virginia they were 
willing to bear it, out of regard to their Eastern friends ; that it was 
of small consequence to them who were the carriers of their produce, 
and that out of regard for Eastern interests they had submitted to dis- 
criminating duties. As to removing the Embargo, he was in favor of 
adhering to it at all hazards. He was in favor of putting to trial what 
the strength of the federal arm was, and if it were not sufficient to 
enforce its own laws, it might as well be known now as hereafter." 

^^ November 15. — At Congress. Early adjournment. In the evening 
Taggart, Lewis of Virginia, Tallmadge, etc. visited us. Lewis said that 
there were no traditions circulating in Virginia concerning the youth- 
ful period of Washington's life of any great interest. He was always 
remarkable for great firmness and thoughtfulness, for love of athletic 
sports, and for great muscular strength, particularly great force of arm. 
He could throw a stone farther than any man in Virginia; and there 
was a mark on the side of the Natural Bridge, with Washington's name 
on the rock, it being the place to which he had, in 1750 or 1760, thrown 
a stone from below, as is the practice with persons visiting that wonder 
of nature. Washington's mark is twenty feet higher than any other." 

'■^November 16. — Conversation with John Randolph. He said the 
Embargo was ruining Virginia, — particularly in his part of It (Char- 
lotte County), where the justices of the county courts had persisted 
in continuing the courts open and business progressing In Its usual 
course. In other parts of the State (and he cited Albemarle County 
and the neighborhood of Mr. Jefferson) the justices had refused to 
transact business, and that had in some measure checked the immediate 
pressure of the measure, and indeed had given It a considerable de- 
gree of popularity with all those who, being needy or embarrassed, 
were willing to find an excuse for delinquency. The people had been 



144 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

deluded. Their sufferance of the measure he attributed solely to their 
patriotism and to their belief that it had its origin in the real good of 
the country." 

By this refusal to hold the county courts, the neighbors of 
Mr. Jefferson were of course relieved from the unpleasant neces- 
sity of paying their debts, — a privilege of which it seems those 
of Mr. Randolph were, to his regret and indignation, injuriously 
deprived. Mr. William B. Giles, whose testimony to the will- 
ingness of his constituents to suffer in the cause of their Eastern 
friends is here recorded, was born in 1762 ; graduated at Prince- 
ton in 1781 ; and was Representative from Virginia from 1790 
to 1798, and from 1801 to 1802, Senator from 1804 to 1815, and 
Governor from 1826 to 1829. He was a bitter political enemy 
of Washington, distinguishing himself by making a disparaging 
speech about him on his retirement from office, and by refusing 
on a previous occasion to vote for an adjournment of the House 
on the 22d of February, for the purpose of waiting on him, as 
was then customary. He was one of the ablest supporters of all 
the extreme measures of Jefferson. He died in 1830. Gen- 
eral Samuel Smith had been a Colonel in the Revolutionary 
army, and was a General of the Maryland militia. He repre- 
sented that State in the House or Senate from 1793 to 1833, 
and was also a vvai'm supporter of the administration of Mr. 
Jefferson. He died in 1839. Joseph Lewis was, according to 
Jefferson, " the residuary legatee of Virginia Federalism," and a 
cordial regard and occasional correspondence subsisted between 
him and Mr. Quincy while he lived. 

From the following letter of Mr. Adams to Mr. Quincy, and 
yet more from one I shall give a little later, it will be seen, 
though he sustained the Administration generally after it re- 
ceived the support of Mr. John Quincy Adams, that the Ex- 
President did not accept the Embargo with the unquestioning 
enthusiasm of his eminent son. 

"QuDiCT, Nov. 25, 1808. 

" My dear Friend : — I owe you a thousand thanks, to speak in 
the good old English form of civility, for the speech and the documents. 
You are greatly to be pitied, — I mean all of you, of all partitas, — for 



LETTER FROM PRESIDENT ADAMS. 145 

I see you must labor very hard, and with much anxiety, without the 
smallest hope, that I can discern, of preserving yourselves and us, the 
people, from very dull times. If you continue the Embargo, the times 
will be hard. If you institute a total non-intercourse, the times will 
not be more cheerful. If you repeal the Embargo, circumstances will 
occur of more animation, but perhaps not more profit or more comfort. 
If you arm our merchantmen, there will be war. The blood will not 
stagnate, it is true ; but it may run too freely for our health or comfort. 
If you declare war against France and Eflgland at once, this will be 
sublime, to be sure, and if we had a Dutch navy and a Van Tromp to 
sail up the Thames, and a De Ruyter to sail up the Seine, we might gain 
as much by it as the Dutch did when they warred against England, 
France, and Spain at once, — that is, we might obtain by it much 
wealth and a good peace. 

"I have made up my mind for hard, dull times, in all events. I rec- 
oncile myself to our destiny as well as I can, by considering that we 
are yet in a much better situation than any other nation, and that we 
cannot probably be in a worse, whatever may happen. 

" I have another resource, too, for reconciling myself to our fate, and 
that is by running over again the history of the world. I have just 
finished Voltaire's essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations, which 
is a miniature of universal history. When I find that this globe has 
been a vast theatre, on which the same tragedies and comedies have 
been acted over and over again in all ages and countries, how can I 
hope that this country should escape the universal calamity ? Despair 
itself hardens, if it does not comfort. One would think that the con- 
sideration that all other nations always have been and now are more 
miserable than we are, should make one more unhappy ; but it has not 
that effect. It alleviates in some degree our distress. When we 
see that an evil or a danger is inevitable, we resolve and prepare to 
meet it. 

" An acquaintance of yours, Mrs. Price, Mrs. T. Greenleaf's mother, 
died this afternoon very suddenly. Last evening she was preparing to 
go abroad upon a tea-party. 

" Mrs. Adams presents her compliments and thanks for the docu- 
ments, which she takes a satisfaction in reading, because they are well 
printed, and save her eyes from the torment of reading the newspapers. 

" With great and sincere esteem, I am, sir, your obliged servant, 

"J. Adams." 

To this letter, Mr. Quincy replied as follows : — 



146 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUIXCY. 

" Washingtox, i5th De.;ember, 1908. 

" Sir : — Your favor of November 25th found me in tin; midst of a 
parliamentary contest, which occupied me too intensely to admit of 
that early acknowledgment which a deep sense of the honor you 
have conferred on me dictated. The battle has raged with some 
warmth, and it has been my fate to be in the hottest of it Whether 
my exertions were as wise as they were, I am sure, well intended, I 
confess I am ignorant, — I had almost said, indifferent. That the 
country cannot remain in the conilition in which it is, I was ccrta,in. 
That it was the determination of the Administration to adhere perti- 
naciously to the Embargo, I was equally certain. That they and their 
majority were in a good measure ignorant of the real temper and suf- 
ferings of our people, I knew. My object has been, as far as possible, to 
shake their confidence in that system, which, whatever they believed or 
Intended, I was conscious was ruining the hopes of New England. 
With respect to subsequent measures, in case the Embargo was re- 
moved, there are, indeed, considerable dilHculties, growing, however, 
more out of the character and policy of the men who guide our alfairs, 
than from anything unexampled in the embarrassments of the nation. 
A policy not unlike that of 1 798, with some variation in the detail, 
resulting out of particular differences in our situation, would yet pre- 
serve us, not only in peace, but, as I believe, in the enjoyment of a rich 
harvest of neutrality. But how can such a ' dish of skim-milk ' as 
now stands curdling at the head of our nation be stirred to so miglity 
an action as that which he who then led the destinies of the country 
effected ? Fear of responsibility and love of popularity are now 
master-passions, and regulate all the movements. The policy is to 
keep things as they are, and wait for European events. It is hoped 
the chapter of accidents may present something favorable within the 
remaining three months. And if it does not, no great convulsion can 
happen during that period. The Presidential term will have expired, 

and then away to Monticello, and let the take the hindmost. I 

do believe that not a whit deeper project than this fills the august 
mind of your successor. 

" Whether the definite project be to put an end to mercantile enter- 
prise, and make us abandon the water, I know not. The intention is 
denied; yet all the talents of the friends of Administration are in 
requisition to convince us of the dreadful consequences to our property 
and rights, 

' .... si tamen impia 
Non tangenda rates transiliunt vada.' 



SPEECH ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 147 

" How all these things will terminate, indeed I know not. But of 
one thing I am certain, that, happen what will, I shall never cease to 
feel and express the very great honor and respect with which I am, &c. 

"J. QUINCY." 

The questions of the Embargo and of the foreign relations of 
the United States were necessarily the prominent topics of this 
session. The Federalists moved at sundry times for the repeal, 
total or partial, of the Embargo, and for various modifications of it 
to make its operations less oppressive. But all propositions from 
that side of the House, and of that complexion, were voted down, 
and the only legislation on the subject was a law providing for 
its stricter execution, and for the prevention and punishment of 
evasions of it. Mr. Quincy maintained, during this session, on 
his own responsibility, the independent course he had adopted at 
the last, following his own judgment rather than the lead of Ran- 
dolph in the discharge of his parliamentary duties. 

On the 28th of November, he made his first speech on Foreign 
Relations, which gave him a more marked position in the House 
and before the country than anything he had yet done. It was 
on this resolution, offered by the committee to which had been 
referred so much of the President's Message as treated of foreign 
relations : " Resolved, That the United States cannot, without a 
sacrifice of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the 
late edicts of Great Britain and France." One of the inferences 
of the report from this proposition was, that therefore the Em- 
bargo should be continued. As to the resolution, in itself, inter- 
preted by the natural meaning of its words, Mr. Quincy affirmed 
that it was unobjectionable. It was but the announcement of a 
determination to perform one of the most common and undeniable 
of public duties. As to the course advocated in the report for 
the carrying out of the resolution, " it is," he said, " in my opin- 
ion, loathsome ; the spirit it breathes, disgraceful ; the temper it 
is likely to inspire, neither calculated to regain the rights we have 
lost, nor to preserve those which remain to us." And presently 
he proceeds : — 

" I agree to this resolution, because, in my apprehension, it ofTers a 
solemn pledge to this nation — a pledge not to be mistaken, and not 



148 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

to be evaded — that the present system of public measures shall be 
totally abandoned. Adopt it, and there is an end of the policy of 
deserting our rights, under a pretence of maintaining them. Adopt it, 
and we no longer yield to the beck of haughty belligerents the rights 
of navigating the ocean, — that choice inheritance bequeathed to us 
by our fathers. Adopt it, and there is a termination of that base and 
abject submission by which this country has for these eleven months 
been disgraced and brought to the brink of ruin. 

"It remains for us, therefore, to consider what submission is, and 
what the pledge not to submit implies. 

" One man submits to the order, decree, or edict of another, when 
he does that thing which such order, decree, or edict commands ; or 
when he omits to do that thing which such order, decree, or edict 
prohibits. This, then, is submission. It is to do as we are bidden. It 
is to take the will of another as the measure of our rights. It is to 
yield to his power, to go where he directs, or to refrain from going 
where he forbids us. 

" If this be submission, then the pledge not to submit implies the 
reverse of all this. It is a solemn declaration that we will not do that 
thing which such order, decree, or edict commands, or that we will do 
what it prohibits. This, then, is freedom. This is honor. This is inde- 
pendence. It consists in taking the nature of things, and not the will 
of another, as the measure of our rights. What God and Nature of- 
fer us we will enjoy in despite of the commands, regardless of the 
menaces, of iniquitous power. 

" Let us apply these correct and undeniable principles to the edicts 
of Great Britain and France, and the consequent abandonment of the 
ocean by the American government. The decrees of France prohibit 
us from trading with Great Britain. The orders of Great Britain pro- 
hibit us from trading with France. And what do we ? Why, in di- 
rect subserviency to the edicts of each, we prohibit our citizens from 
trading with either. We do more. As if unqualified submission was not 
humiliating enough, we descend to an act of supererogation in servility ; 
we abandon trade altogether ; we not only refrain from that particular 
trade which their respective edicts proscribe, but, lest the ingenuity of 
our merchants should enable them to evade tbeir operation, to make 
submission doubly sure, the American government virtually re-enact 
the edicts of the belligerents, and abandon all the trade which, not- 
withstanding the practical effects of their edicts, remains to us. The 
same conclusion will result if we consider our Embargo in relation to 



SPEECH ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 1'19 

the objetts of this belligerent policy. France, by her edicts, woiild 
compress Great Britain by destroying her commerce and cutting off 
her supplies. All the continent of Europe, in the hand of Bonaparte, 
is made subservient to this policy. The Embargo law of the United 
States, in its operation, is an union with this Continental coalition 
against British commerce at the very moment most, auspicious to its 
success. Can anything be more in direct subserviency to the views of 
tlie French Emperor V If we consider the orders of Great Britain, 
the result will be the same. I proceed at present on the supposition 
of a perfect impartiality in our administration towards both bellige- 
rents, so far as relates to the Embargo law. Great Britain had two 
objects in issuing her orders. First, to excite discontent in the peojjle 
of the Continent, by depriving them of their accustomed colonial sup- 
plies. Second, to secure to herself that commerce of which she de- 
prived neutrals. Our Embargo co-operates with the British views in 
both respects. By our dereliction of the ocean, the Continent is much 
more deprived of the advantages of commerce than it would be possi- 
ble for the British navy to effect, and by removing our competition all 
the commerce of the Continent which can be forced is wholly left to be 
reaped by Great Britain. The language of each sovereign is in direct 
conformity with these ideas. Napoleon tells the American Minister, 
virtually, that we are very good Americans ; that although he will not 
allow the property he has in his hands to escape him, nor desist fi'om 
burning and capturing our vessels on every occasion, yet that he is, 
thus far, satisfied with our co-operation. And what is the language 
of George III. when our minister presents to his consideration the 
Embargo laws. Is it Le Roy s'avisera f — ' The king will reflect upon 
them.' No, it is the pure language of royal approbation, Le Roy le veut, 
' The king wills it.' Were you colonies, he could expect no more. His 
subjects as inevitably get that commerce which you abandon, as the 
water will certainly run into the only chann.el which remains after all 
the others are obstructed. In whatever point of view you consider 
these Embargo laws in relation to those edicts and decrees, we shall 
find them co-operating with each belligerent in its policy. In this way, 
I grant, our conduct may be impartial ; but what has become of our 
American rights to navigate the ocean ? They are abandoned in strict 
conformity to the decrees of both belligerents. This resolution de- 
clares that we will no longer submit to such degrading humiliation. 
Little as I relish it, I will take it, as the harbinger of a new day, — 
the pledge of a new system of measures. 

" Perhaps here, in strictness, I ought to close my observations. But 



150 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the report of tLe committee, contrary to what I deem the principle of 
the resolution, unquestionably recommends the continuance of the 
Embargo laws. And such is the state of the nation, and in particular 
that portion of it which, in part, I represent, under their oppression, 
that I cannot refrain from submitting some considerations on that 
subject. 

" When I enter on the subject of the Embargo, I am struck with 
wonder at the very threshold. I know not with what words to express 
my astonishment. At the time I departed from Massachusetts, if there 
was an impression which I thought universal, it was that at the com- 
mencement of this session an end would be put to this measure. The 
opinion was not so much that it would be terminated, as that it was 
then at an end. Sir, the prevailing sentiment, according to my appre- 
hension, was stronger than this, — even that the pressure was so great 
that it could not possibly be long endured ; that it would soon be ab- 
solutely insupportable. And this opinion, as I then had reason to be- 
lieve, was not confined to any one class, or description, or party, — even 
those who were friends of the existing Administration, and unwilling 
to abandon it, were yet satisfied that a sufficient trial had been given 
to this measure. With these impressions, I arrive in this city. I hear 
the incantations of the great enchanter. I feel his spell. I see the 
legislative machinery begin to move. The scene opens, and I am 
commanded to forget all my recollections, to disbelieve the evidence 
of my senses, to contradict what I have seen, and heard, and felt. I 
hear that all this discontent was mere pai'ty clamor, — electioneering 
artifice ; that the people of New England are able and willing to en- 
dure this Embargo for an indefinite, unlimited period ; some say for six 
months, some a year, some two years. The gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Macon) told us that he preferred three years of Em- 
bargo to a war. And the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Clopton) said 
expressly, that he hoped we should never allow our vessels to go upon 
the ocean again, until the orders and decrees of the belligerents were 
rescinded. In plain English, until France and Great Britain should, 
in their great condescension, permit. — Good Heavens! Mr. Chair- 
man, are men mad ? Is this House touched with that insanity which 
is the never-failing precursor of the intention of Heaven to destroy ? 
The people of New England, after eleven months' deprivation of the 
ocean, to be commanded still longer to abandon it, for an undefined 
period, — to hold their unalienable rights at the tenure of the will of 
Britain or of Bonaparte ! A people commercial in all aspects, in all 
their relations, in all their hopes, in all their recollections of the past, 



SPEECH ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 151 

in all their prospects of the future, — a people, whose first love was 
the ocean, the choice of their childhood, the approbation of their man- 
ly years, the most precious inheritance of their fathers, — in the midst 
of their success, in the moment of the most exquisite perception of com- 
mercial prosperity, to be commanded to abandon it, not for a time 
limited, but for a time unlimited, — not until they can be prepared to 
defend themselves there, (for that is not pretended,) but until their 
rivals recede from it, — not until their necessities require, but until for- 
eign nations permit ! I am lost in astonishment, Mr. Chairman. I 
have not words to express the matchless absurdity of this attempt. I 
hcive no tongue to express the swift and headlong destruction which a 
blind perseverance in such a system must bring upon this nation. 

"Mr. Chairman, other gentlemen must take their responsibilities, 
— I shall take mine. This Embargo must be repealed. You cannot 
enforce it for any important period of time longer. When I speak 
of your inability to enforce this law, let not gentlemen misunderstand 
me. I mean not to intimate insurrections or open defiances of them. 
Although it is impossible to foresee in what acts that ' oppression ' will 
finally terminate which, we are told, " makes wise men mad." I 
speak of an inability resulting from very different causes. 

" The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Macon) exclaimed the 
other day, in a strain of patriotic ardor, ' What ! shall not our laws be 
executed ? Shall their authority be defied ? I am for enforcing them 
at every hazard.' I honor that gentleman's zeal ; and I mean no 
deviation from that true respect I entertain for him, when I tell him, 
that in this instance ' his zeal is not according to knowledge.' 

" I ask this House, is there no control to its authority ? is there no 
limit to the power of this national legislature ? I hope I shall offend no 
man when I intimate that two limits exist, — Nature and the Con- 
stitution. Should this House undertake to declare that this atmos- 
phere should no longer surround us, that water should cease to flow, that 
gravity should not hereafter operate, that the needle should not vibrate 
to the pole, I do suppose, Mr. Chairman, — Sir, I mean no disrespect 
to the authority of this House, I know the high notions some gentlemen 
entertain on this subject, — I do suppose — Sir, I hope I shall not of- 
fend — I think I may venture to affirm, that, such a law to the con- 
trary notwithstanding, the air would continue to circulate, the Missis- 
sippi, the Hudson, and the Potomac would hurl their floods to the 
ocean, heavy bodies continue to descend, and the mysterious magnet 
hold on its course to its celestial cynosure. 



152 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" Just as utterly absurd and contrary to nature is it to attempt to 
prohibit the people of New England, for any considerable length of 
time, irom the ocean. Commerce is not only associated with all the 
feelings, the habits, the interests and relations of that people, but the 
nature of our soil and of our coasts, the state of our population and its 
mode of distribution over our territory, render it indispensable. We 
have five hundred miles of sea-coast ; all furnished with harboi/s, bays, 
creeks, rivers, inlets, basins, — with every variety of invitation to the 
sea, — with every species of facility to violate such laws as these. Our 
people are not scattered over an immense surface, at a solemn dis- 
tance from each other, in lordly retirement, in the midst of extended 
plantations and intervening wastes. They are collected on the mar- 
gin of the ocean, by the sides of rivers, at the heads of bays, looking 
into the water or on the surface of it for the incitement and. the re- 
ward of their industry. Among a people thus situated, thus educated, 
thus numerous, laws prohibiting them from the exercise of their nat- 
ural rights will have a binding eifect not one moment longer than the 
public sentiment supports them, 

" I ask in what page of the Constitution you find the power of laying 
an Embargo ? Directly given it is nowhere. You have it, then, by 
construction, or b}' precedent. By construction of the power to reg- 
ulate. I lay out of the question the commonplace argument, that 
regulation cannot mean annihilation ; and that what is annihilated 
cannot be regulated. I ask this question, — Can a power be ever ob- 
tained by construction which had never been exercised at the time of 
the authority given, — the like of which had not only never been seen, 
but the idea of which had never entered into human imagination, I 
will not say in this country, but in the world ? Yet such is this 
po^-er, which by construction you assume to exercise. Never before 
did society witness a total prohibition of all intercourse like this in a 
commercial nation. Did the people of the United States invest this 
House with a power of which at the time of investment that people 
had not and could not have had any idea ? For even in works of fic- 
tion it had never existed. 

"But it has been asked in debate, 'Will not Massachusetts, the 
cradle of hberty, submit to such privations?* An Embargo liberty 
was never cradled in Massachusetts. Our liberty was not so much a 
mountain as a sea nymph. She was free as air. She could swim, or 
she could run. The ocean was her cradle. Our fathers met her as she 



SPEECH ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 153 

came, like the goddess of beauty, from the -waves. They caught her 
as she was sporting on the beach. They courted her whilst she was 
spreading her nets upon the rocks. But an Embargo liberty, a hand- 
cuffed liberty, a liberty in fetters, a liberty traversing between the four 
sides of a prison and beating her head against the walls, is none of our 
offspring. We abjure the monster. Its parentage is all inland. 

" The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Macon) exclaimed the 
other day, 'Where is the spirit of '76?' Ay, Sir; where is it? 
Would to Heaven that at our invocation it would condescend to alight 
on this floor. But let gentlemen remember, that the spirit of '76 was 
not a spirit of empty declamation, or of abstract propositions. It did 
not content itself with non-importation acts, or non-Intercourse laws. 
It was a spirit of active preparation, of dignified energy. It studied 
both to know our rights and to devise the effectual means of main- 
taining them. In all the annals of '76, you will find no such degrad- 
ing doctrine as that maintained in this report. It never presented to 
the people of the United States the alternative of war or a suspension 
of our rights, and recommended the latter rather than to incur the 
risk of the former. What was the language of that period in one of 
the addresses of Congress to Great Britain ? ' You attempt to reduce 
us by the sword to base and abject submission. On the sword, there- 
fore, we rely for protection.' In that day there were no alternatives 
presented to dishearten, — no abandonment of our rights under the 
pretence of maintaining them, — no gaining the battle by running 
away. In the whole history of that period there are no such terms as 
' Embargo^ — dignified retirement, — trying who can do each other the 
most harm.' At that time we had a navy, — that name so odious to the 
influences of the present day. Yes, sir, in 1776, though but in our 
infancy, we had a navy scouring our coasts, and defending our com- 
merce, which was never for one moment wholly suspended. In 1776 we 
had an army also ; and a glorious army it was ! not composed of men 
halting from the stews, or swept from the jails, but of the best blood, 
the real yeomanry of the country, noble cavaliers, men without fear 
and loithout reproach. We had SUCH an army in 1776, and 
Washington at its head. — We have an army in 1808, and 
A head to it. 

" I will not humiliate those who lead the fortunes of the nation at 
the present day by any comparison with the great men of that pe- 
riod. But I recommend the advocates of the present system of public 
measures to study well the true spirit of 1776, before they venture to 
call it in aid of their purposes. It may bring in its train some recol- 
7* 



154 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

lections not suifod to give ease or hope to their bosoms. I beg gen- 
tlemen who are so frequent in their recurrence to that period to re- 
member, that among the causes ■which led to a separation from Great 
Britain the following are enumerated : unnecessary restrictions upon 
trade; cutting off commercial intercourse between the Colonies; embar- 
rassing our Jishcries ; wantonly depriving our citizens of necessaries ; 
ini-asion of private property by governmental edicts ; the authority of the 
commander-in-chief and under him of the brigadier-general, being ren- 
dered supreme in the civil government; the commander-in-chief of the 
ai-my made governor of a Colony ; citizens transferred from their native 
country for trial. Let gentlemen beware how they appeal to the spirit 
of '76 ; lest it come with the aspect, not of a friend, but of a tormentor, 
— ^lest they find a warning when they look for support, and instead 
of encouragement they are presented with an awful lesson. 

" Let me ask. Is Embargo Independence ? Deceive not yourselves. 
It is palpable submission. Gentlemen exclaim, Great Britain ' smites 
us on one cheek.' And what does Administration ? ' It turns the 
other also.' Gentlemen say, Great Britain is a robber, she ' takes 
our cloak.' And what says Administration ? ' Let her take our coat 
also.' France and Great Britain require you to relinquish a part of 
your commerce, and you yield it entirely. Sir, this conduct may be 
the way to dignity and honor in another world, but it will never secure 
safety and independence in this. 

" At every corner of this great city we meet some gentlemen of the 
majority, wringing their hands and exclaiming, ' What shall we do ? 
Nothing but Embargo will save us. Remove it, and what shall we 
do? ' Sir, it is not for me, an humble and uninfluenlial individual, at 
an awful distance from the predominant influences, to suggest plans of 
government. But to my eye the path of our duty is as distinct as the 
milky way, — all studded with living sapphires, glowing with cumu- 
lating light. It is the path of active preparation, of dignified energy. 
It is the path of 1776. It consists, not in abandoning our rights, but 
in supporting them, as they exist, and where they exist, — on the 
ocean as well as on the land. It consists in taking the nature of things 
AS the measure of the rights of your citizens, not the orders and de- 
crees of imperious foreigners. Give what protection you can. Take 
no counsel of fear. Your strength will increase with the trial, and 
prove greater than you are now aware. 

" But I shall be told, ' This may lead to war.' I ask, ' Are we now at 
peace f ' Certainly not, unless retiring from insult be peace, — unless 



SECOND SPEECH ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 155 

shrinking under the lash be peace. The surest way to prevent war is 
not to fear it. The idea that nothing on earth is so dreadful as war is 
inculcated too studiously among us. Disgrace is worse. Abandon- 
ment of essential rights is worse. 

" Sir, I could not refrain from seizing the first opportunity of spread- 
ing before this House the sufferings and exigencies of New England 
under this Embargo. Some gentlemen may deem it not strictly before 
us. In my opinion it is necessarily. For, if the idea of the commit- 
tee be correct, and Embargo is resistance, then this resolution sanctions 
its continuance. If, on the contrary, as I contend, Embargo is submis- 
sion, then this resolution is a pledge of its repeal." 

This speech made its author as well abused a man in Congress, 
and by the Democratic pre,<s, as was then extant. It had evi- 
dently drawn blood, and very bad blood. " You mu-t expect," he 
wrote that day to his wife, " to hear that your husband has been 
abused and pecked at by the whole poultry-yard ; but he keeps 
up his health and spirits, and means to repay them in time." 
The speech was immediately printed as a pamphlet in Boston, 
and the Democratic abuse which it received was answered by 
quite as warm Federal praise. The time to which he looked for- 
ward when he should repay his assailants arrived on the 7th of 
December, when he made his second speech on Foreign Relations, 
of which I subjoin a few extracts. 

" When I had the honor of addressing this House, a few days ago, I 
touched this famous report of our Committee on Foreign Relations 
perhaps a little too carelessly. Perhaps I handled it a little too 
roughly, considering its tender age and the manifest delicacy of its 
constitution. But, Sir, I had no idea of affecting very exquisitely the 
sensibilities of any gentleman. I thought that this was a common re- 
port of one of our ordinary committees, which I had a right to canvass, 
or to slight, to applaud, or to censure, without raising any extraordinary 
concern, either here or elsewhere. But from the general excitement 
which my inconsiderate treatment of this subject occasions, I fear that 
I have been mistaken. This can be no mortal fabric, Mr. Speaker. 
This 7nust be (hat image ichich fell down from Jupiter, — present or fu- 
ture. Surely, nothing but a being of celestial origin would raise such 
tumult iu minds attempered like those which lead the destinies of this 
House. 

" Sir, I thought that this report had been a common piece of wood,— 



15G LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

inutile lignum. Sir, just such a piece of wood as any day-laborer 
might have hewed out in an hour, had he health and a hatchet. But 
it seems that our honorable Chairman of the Committee of Foreign 
Relations maluit esse Deum. Well, Sir, I have no objections. If the 
workmen will, a God it shall be. I only wish, when gentlemen Iring 
their sacred things upon this floor, that they would ' blow a ti-umpet 
before them, as the Heathens do ' on such occasions, to the end that 
all true believers may prepare themselves to adore and tremble, and 
that all unbelievers may turn aside, and not disturb their devotions. 

" The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Campbell) called upon us, 
just now, to tell him what was disgraceful submission, if carrying on 
commerce under these restrictions was not such submission. I will tell 
that gentleman. That submission is ^abject and discinicefuV which 
yields to the decrees of frail and feeble power as though they were 
irresistible, — which takes counsel of fear, and weighs not our com- 
parative force, — which abandons the whole, at a summons to deliver 
up a part, — which makes the will of others the measure of rights 
■which God and Nature not only have constituted eternal and unalien- 
able, but have also endued us with ample means to maintain. 

"My argument on this clause of the report of the Committee may 
be presented in this form. Either the United States have, or they 
have not, physical ability to carry on commerce, in defiance of the 
edicts of both or of either of these nations. If we have not physical 
ability to carry on the trade which they prohibit, then it is no dis- 
grace to exercise that commerce which these irresistible decrees per- 
mit. If we have such physical ability, then to the degree in which 
•we abandon that commerce which we have power to carry on is 
our submission ' abject and disgraceful' It Is yielding without strug- 
gle. It is sacrificing our rights, not because we have not force, but 
because we have not spirit, to maintain them. It is in this point of 
view that I am disgusted with this report. It abjures what it recom- 
mends. It declaims, in heroics, against submission, and proposes, in 
creeping prose, a tame and servile subserviency. 

"But war is never to be incurred. If this be the national prin- 
ciple, avow it. — Tell your merchants you will not protect them. But 
for Heaven's sake do not deny them the power of relieving their own 
and the nation's burdens by the exercise of their own ingenuity. Sir, 
impassable as the barriers offered by these edicts are, in the estimation 
of members on this floor, the merchants abroad do not estimate them 



SECOND SPEECH ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 157 

as insurmountable. Their anxiety to risk their property in defiance 
of them is full evidence of this. The great danger to mercantile inge- 
nuity is internal envy, the corrosion of weakness, or prejudice. Ita 
external hazard is ever infinitely smaller. That practical intelligence 
which this class of men possesses, beyond any other in the community, 
excited by self-interest, the strongest of human passions, is too elastic 
to be confined by the limits of exterior human powers, however great 
or uncommon. Build a Chinese wall : the wit of your merchants, if 
permitted freely to operate, will break through it, or overleap it, or 

undorcreep it. 

'Mille adde catenas, 
EfFugiet tamen haec sceleratus vincula Proteus.' 

The second branch of the alternative under consideration is equally 
deceptive. ' War with both nations' Can this ever be an alter- 
native ? Did you ever read in history, can you conceive in fancy, a 
war with two nations, each of whom is at war with the other, without 
a union with one against the other immediately resulting ? It can- 
not exist in nature. The very idea is absurd. It never can be an 
alternative whether we shall fight two nations, each hostile to the 
other. But it may be, and, if we are to fight at all, it is, a very serious 
question, which of the two we are to select as an adversary." 

"It was under these general impressions that I used the word 
loathsome^ which has so often been repeated. Sir, it may not have 
been a well-chosen word. It was that which happened to come to 
hand first. I meant to express my disgust at what appeared to me a 
mass of bold assumptions, and of ill-cemented sophisms. 

" I said, also, that ' the spirit which it breathed was disgraceful.' 
Sir, I meant no reflection upon the Committee. Honest men and wise 
men may mistake the character of the spirit which they recommend, 
or by which they are actuated. When called upon to reason con- 
corning that which, by adoption, is to become identified with the na- 
tional character, I am bound to speak of it as it appears to my vision. 
I may be mistaken. Yet I ask the question, Is not the spirit which 
it breathes disgraceful ? Is it not disgraceful to abandon the exercise 
of all our commercial rights, because our rivals interfere with a part ; 
not only to refrain from exercising that trade which they prohioit, 
but, for fear of giving offence, to decline that which they permit? 
Is it not disgraceful, after inflammatory recapitulation of insults, and 
plunderings, and burnings, and confiscations, and murders, and actual 
war made upon us, to talk of nothing but alternatives, of general doc- 



158 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

larations, of still longer suspension of our rights and retreating farther 
out of ' hai-m's way ' ? If this course be adopted by my country, I hope 
[ am in error concerning its !real character. But to my sense this 
whole report is nothing else than a recommendation to us of the aban- 
ionment of our essential rights, and apologies for doing it. 

' An honorable gentleman (Mr. Troup of Georgia) was also pleased 
to speak of ' a paltry trade in potash and codfish' and to refer to me 
as the representative of men who raised '■beef and pork, and butter and 
cheese, and potatoes and cabbages.' Well, Sir, I confess the fact. I 
am the representative, in part, of men the products of whose industry 
are beef and pork, and butter and cheese, and potatoes and cabbages. 
And let me tell that honorable gentleman, that I would not yield the 
honor of representing such men to be the representative of all the 
growers of cotton, and rice, and tobacco, and indigo, in the whole 
world. Sir, the men whom I represent not only raise these humble 
articles, but they do it with the labor of their own ha7ids, — with the 
sweat of their own brows. And by this their habitual mode of hardy 
industry, they acquire a vigor of nerve, a strength of muscle, and a 
spirit and intelligence somewhat characteristic. And let me assure 
that honorable gentleman, that the men of whom I speak will not, at 
his call, nor at the invitation of any set of men from his quarter of the 
Union, undertake to ' drive one another into the ocean.' But, on the 
contrary, whenever they once realize that their rights are invaded, 
they will unite, like a band of brothers, and drive their enemies there. 

" Can any nation admit that the trade of another is so important to 
her welfare as that, on its being withdrawn, any obnoxious policy 
must be abandoned, without at the same time admitting that she is no 
longer independent ? Sir, I could indeed wish that it were in our 
power to regulate, not only Great Britain, but the whole world, by 
opening or closing our ports. It would be a glorious thing for 
our country to possess such a mighty weapon of offence. But, 
acting in a public capacity, with the high responsibilities resulting 
from the great interests dependent upon my decision, I cannot yield 
to the wishes of love-sick patriots, or the visions of teeming enthu- 
siasts. I must see the adequacy of means to their ends. I must see, 
not merely that it is very desirable that Great Britain should be 
brought to our feet by this Embargo, but that there is some likelihood 
of such a consequence to the measure, before I can concur in that 
universal distress and ruin which, if much longer continued, will 



SECOND SPEECH ON FOREIGN EELATiONS. 159 

inevitably result from it. Since, then, every dictate of sense and re- 
flection convinces me of the utter futility of this system as a means of 
coercion on Great Britain, I shall not hesitate to urge its abandon- 
ment. No, Sir, not even although, like others, I should be assailed by 
all the terrors of the outcry of British influence. 

" Really, Mr. Speaker, I know not how to express the shame and 
disgust with which I am filled when I hear language of this kind cast 
out upon this floor, and thrown in the faces of men standing justly at 
no mean height in the confidence of their countrymen. Sir, I did, 
indeed, know that such vulgar aspersions were circulating among the 
lower passions of our nature. I knew that such vile substances were 
ever tempering between the paws of some printer's devil. 1 knew 
that foul exhalations like these daily rose in our cities, and crept along 
the ground, just as high as the spirits of lampblack and saline oil could 
elevate; falling soon, by native baseness, into oblivion. I knew, too, 
that this species of party insinuation was a mighty engine, in this 
quarter of the country, on an election day, played off" from the top of 
a stump or the top of a hogshead, while the gin circulated, while the 
barbecue was roasting ; in those happy, fraternal associations and con- 
sociations when those who speak utter without responsibility, and those 
who listen hear without scrutiny. But little did I think, that such 
odious shapes would dare to obtrude themselves on this national floor 
among honorable men, — the select representatives, the confidential 
agents, of a wise, a thoughtful, and a virtuous people. I want lan- 
guage to express my contempt and indignation at the sight. 

" So far as respects the attempt which has been made to cast such 
aspersion on that part of the country which I have the honor to rep- 
resent, I beg this honorable House to understand, that so long as they 
■who circulated such insinuations deal only in generals, and touch not 
particulars, they may gain, among the ignorant and the stupid, a vacant 
and a staring audience. But when once these suggestions are brought 
to bear upon those individuals who, in New England, have naturally 
the confidence of their countrymen, there is no power in these calum- 
nies. The men who now lead the influences of that country, and in 
whose counsels the people, on the day when the tempest shall come, 
will seek refuge, are men whose stake is in the soil, whose interests are 
identified with those of the mass of their brethren, whose private lives 
and public sacrifices present a never-failing antidote to the poison of 
malicious invectives. On such men, sir, party spirit may indeed cast its 
odious filth, but there is a polish in their virtues to which no such slime 
can adhere. They are owners of the soil, — real yeomanry, — many 



160 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

of them men who led in the councils of our country in the dark day 
which preceded national independence ; many of them men who, like 
my honorable friend from Connecticut, on my left, (Colonel Tall- 
madge,) stood foremost on the perilous edge of battle, making their 
breasts, in the day of danger, a bulwark for their country." 

Mr. Quincy wrote to his wife as follows on the subject of this 
speech : — 

"December 17, 1808. — You will before this perceive that I have 
thrown off certain shackles of other men's opinions, and, instead of 
lying still all the session, have taken the responsibility of an early dis- 
play of my standard. The consequence has been that I have been the 
object of attack to every one who has spoken, and with not a single 
Federal aid. (This is entre nous.') However, this was so much the 
better. I made to-day my retort courteous. You will see I have 
been handled a little roughly, and that I handle not gently in return. 
.... I was a little provoked at the scandalous trick of the editor of 
the National Intelligencer, who published what he reported as my 
speech so as to make it absolute nonsense, in order to publish a speech 
of Ezekiel Bacon, my colleague from Massachusetts, in the same 
paper, written out and corrected from the printer's report, with altera- 
tions and amendments by the author. This was a common trick to 
give temporary elevation to one speaker, and depression to an obnox- 
ious adversary. My provocation caused me to give more than ordinary 
asperity to my reply I see that the Repertory suggests that Camp- 
bell will try to pick a quarrel with any man who finds fault with his 
report ; and, as I have scorched it pretty severely, you may be uneasy. 
But you know my principles and my sense of duty. Those duties I 
owe to God, to you, and to my children, will never fail to be always 
the predominant active principles in my mind, not less than those I 
owe my country. You will find me on trial possessing real courage, 
not that bastard kind which is here fashionable. 

" Health, peace of mind, and, after my exertions, an humble convic- 
tion of not having disgraced myself, were never more entirely mine 
The question and the crisis fill my thoughts, and strength and courage 
come without bidding. Lloyd enters into my feelings, encourages and 

supports me. He is an excellent fellow I do not believe I shall 

have many such attacks hereafter from Bacon* & Co. My object in 

* Ezekiel Bacon graduated at Yale College in 1794. By the Triennial Cata- 
logue of 1865 he appears to have been still living at that time, and the oldest 
living graduate. He was a member of Congress, 1807-1813, and First Comp- 
troller of the United States Treasury, 1813-1815. 



LETTER FROM MR. ADAMS. 161 

my second speech was to show them I did not fear a little cut and 
thrmt, legislatively, on the national floor. Ten days have passed, and 
not a member has replied to my speech. Gardenier came out pretty 
strongly, and the storm beats upon him, and I have only now and then 
a brush of the whirlwind. However, in its greatest rage it never 

lifted a hair I received a very kind letter from Ex-President 

Adams to-day, in the style of a friend and a father." 

The following is the letter from Mr. Adams, to which I have 
already referx'ed in this chapter, of vvliich my father speaks. This 
letter of Mr. Adams, and all the others contained in this volume, 
are now published for the iirst time, excepting in a few eases 
where credit is given to the printed collection of his works. 

Mr. Adams to Mr. Quincy. 

" QniNCY, Dec. 23, 1808. 

" Dear Sir : — I thank you for all the fine speeches you send me, and 
especially for that of Mr. Lloyd and the letter of the 14th enclosed 
with it. The speech is a chaste, neat composition, very sensible, can- 
did, frank, and manly. I conclude with him, ' remove the Embargo, 
authorize the merchants to arm their vessels, put the nation in a state 
of defence, and assert your well-established and indisputable rights, or 
perish in the contest.' I admire his candor in declaring, ' It would be 
preferable to have war with France rather than with Great Britain ' ; 
though I think it unnecessary, and perhaps imprudent, to declare my 
opinion either way. If we assert our indisputable right, and arm our 
merchants, it will soon be left to France and England to determine 
which of them shall declare war against us. We are not as yet obliged 
to declare war against both or either. Perhaps we never shall be. 
We may make a maritime war as large as may be necessary without 
any declaration. I wish your modesty would have permitted you to 
send me your own speech, which I have read with pleasure. It de- 
serves as handsome a dress as any of them, which our Boston papers 
have not given it. 

"It would be strange if I did not approve the policy of 1798. I 
hope you will adopt some variations in the details, and, particularly, — 
1. I hope you will not tease the President to appoint a commander-in- 
chief of the army, whose transcendent popularity can blast the most 
deliberate and judicious decisions of the President, and defeat the 
authority given him by the Constitution. 2. I hope you will agree to 
no eight-per-cent loan. 3. I am sorry you have already imitated and 

K 



162 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUIXCTI'. 

exceeded tlie policy of 1798 in raising so large an army. 4. 1 see no 
use of the tOO,OUO select militia. A million of cavalry could not save 
one ship at sea from the most contemptible pirate. The resources of 
the country ought at present to be appropriated to the sea. 

" Our Massachusetts Legislature and our Dedham and Topsfield cau- 
cuses have adopted and hazarded some assertions that I regret, because 
I think they cannot be supported. But I am fully convinced that the 
Embargo must be removed. It will be extremely diilicuU, if not abso- 
lutely impossible, to carry it into execution. Insurrections, rebellions^ 
and divisions of the Union will not be encouraged in New England so 
easily as ihey twice were in Pennsylvania ; but to carry such laws into 
effect against the universal bent of a whole people, would require 
armies and navies sufficient to carry on a foreign war, 

" The nation must be brought to a conviction of the necessity of 
bearing taxes for their defence. 

" It is astonishing to consider the tenacious hold with which preju- 
dices and errors grapple whole nations. Our American people have 
entertained for forty yeai-s an opinion of the vast and essential impor- 
tance of their commerce to the commerce, manufactures, resources, and 
naval power of other nations, especially Great Britain. It has been 
the opinion, the public opinion — not indeed the universal opinion, but 
the general sense — of all the States and all the Colonies. Thave never 
believed that we could coerce or intimidate, or bring to serious con- 
sideration, the government of Great Britain by embargoes, or non-im- 
portations, or non-intercourses. Yet I have consented to embargoes 
and non-importations, because the public opinion, the national sense, 
imperiously demanded them. In 1774 it was the almost unanimous 
opinion of Congress that we should obtain a complete redress of all 
grievances by our non-importation agreement. Gentlemen from all 
the States produced their documents and calculations to demonstrate 
the vast amount of our commerce with England, and its close connec- 
tion with every branch of their prosperity. I voted very cheerfully 
with them, though I expected no redress of grievances from their meas- 
ures. I said one evening to the ' greatest orator that ever spoke,' as 
Mr. Randolph calls him : ' I have agreed to all these petitions, addresses, 
letters, non-Importation agreements, etc., but I consider them all to no 
other purpose but to unite our people. I expect no redress, but, on 
the contrary, increased resentment and double vengeance. We must 
fight.' ' By God,' said Patrick, ' I am of your opinion.' I afterwards 
showed him a letter from Major Hawley* to me, which he called 

* A brief cliunicterization by Mr. Adams of Joseph Hawley will be fouud 
in Chapter XV. 



LETTER FROM MR. ADAMS. 163 

broken hints of what he thouglit we ought to do, in which he said, 
' We must come to fighting.' ' By God,' said Henry, again, ' I am of 
that man's mind.' But I never knew another member of that Con- 
gress express a doubt of the efficacy of our measures at the next 
meeting of Parliament. 

"In 1793 or 1794, Mr. Madison carried in the House, and sent up 
to the Senate, resoluUons against the importation of various articles. 
The Senate was equally divided, and I determined against them. I 
have been always sorry when any such measures have been proposed, 
because I know they will produce nothing but anger. The nation, 
however, has been like all other nations. Experience has been lost 
upon them, and they must and will have such measures still. Fight 
we must at last, and we shall be ill advised, I think, if we fight until 
■we are compelled to it, and then only by sea, unless we are invaded. 

' If the Embargo is lifted, of what consequence will be the non-inter- 
cours3 ? Britain will obtain everything she wants from us in the places 
with which we trade, say the Spanish dominions in America, or 
Europe, or Gottenburg, or any other place. 

" If the shackles continue on our commerce, they will produce an 
animosity and a rancor which will give much uneasiness to Mr. Jef- 
ferson's successor, and be very prejudicial to the public service, as well 
as ruinous to the morals, interests, and habits of obedience of the peo- 
ple. The Federal party will increase daily. That, you will say, will 
be a blessing, but it may be obtained at too dear a rate. 

" I am sincerely yours, 

" J. Adams. 

" Mrs. Adams presents her regards to Mr. Quincy." 

Looking back to this time late in life, my father says : " The 
period was critical. Violence appeared at the elections and on 
the floor of Congress. The language of the Southern leaders 
was systematically such as to proffer, according to Southern no- 
tions, the alternative of disgrace or a duel. I had, however, in 
addition to an approving conscience, the open and active support 
of my friends." The following letter from Mr. Harrison Gray 
Otis is one of the many he received at this time from his personal 
and political friends. Besides its intrinsic interest, it is curious 
as containing the first suggestion that I remember to have seen 
of the Hartford Convention. 



16 i LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY, 

Mr. H. G. Otis to Mr. Quincy. 

« Boston, Dec. 15, 1808. 
" My dear Sir : — Your friends are highly tiattered and edified by 
the honorable and zealous exertion of talent which you have displayed 
in the defence of the interests of your country. Your several speeches, 
in connection with those of our Senatorial friends, have left nothing to 
be said or wished for ; and though the Federal phalanx is deplorably 
small, it combines all the variety of force, eloquence, and argument 
necessary for the contest, and sufficient to overwhelm all opposition 
that is not defended by the impenetrable mail of ignorance and impu- 
dence. Judging from appearances, there seems but little prospect of 
your preventing by any means a perseverance in the fatal and unheard- 
of policy on which the Administi-ation seems fully bent, and it becomes 
of great importance that the New England Federalists should determine 
whether any aid can be furnished by the Legislatures of this session, 
and if beneficial effects are to be expected from this quarter, the objects 
should be defined and the means concerted. Our General Court will 
soon meet, and I doubt not the majority will require the bridle rather 
than the spur. If I am not mistaken, there will be found among them 
a fulness of zeal and indignation which can be mitigated only by giving 
them a direction and an object. This temper, you are sensible, must 
not be extinguished for want of sympathy, nor permitted to burst forth 
into imprudent excess. We must look to our friends in Congress for 
advice. You are together, and can best decide on such a course as 
would probably be agreed to by Connecticut, New Hampshire, etc., and 
no other ought to be adopted. 

" You are sensible how obnoxious Massachusetts, for a thousand rea- 
sons, has already become, and perceive more plainly than any of us the 
efforts which are made to mark and distinguish this State as the hot- 
bed of opposition, and this town as the citadel of a British faction. 
Perhaps our Legislature have said as much as is expedient for them 
to say, unless they are to be supported by a correspondent spirit in 
the other States. It would be a great misfortune for us to justify the 
obloquy of wishing to promote a separation of the States, and of being 
solitary in that pursuit. The delusion would spread among our waver- 
ing or timid adherents, and furnish great means of annoyance to our 
inveterate adversaries. It would change the next election, and secure 
the triumph of the dominant party. On the other hand, to do noth- 
ing will expose us to danger and contempt, our resolutions will seem 
to be a flash in the pan, and our apostate representatives will be justi- 



LETTER FrfOxM MR. OTIS. 165 

ficd in the opinions vhich they have doubtless inculcated of our want 
of union and of nerve. What then shall we do? In other words, 
what can Connecticut do ? For we can and will come up to her tone. 
Is she ready to declare the Embargo and its supplementary chains 
unconstitutional, — to propose to their State the appointment of dele- 
gates to meet those from the other commercial States in convention 
at Hartford or elsewhere, for the purpose of providing some mode of 
relief that may not be inconsistent with the union of these States, to 
which we should adhere as long as possible ? Shall New York be 
invited to join ? and what shall be the proposed objects of such a 
convention ? 

" It is my opinion, if the session of Congress terminates as we have 
reason to expect, that recourse ought to be had to some such plan 
as this, and that the only alternative is, in your dialect, submission. 
But some other State ought to make the proposal, for obvious reasons. 
Will you, my good sir, talk over this subject with our little Spartan 
band, and favor me in season with the result of your collected wisdom ? 
Let me know whether you think any good effect would be produced 
m Congress by hints of this kind in the public papers. Sometimes I 
fear that we are so neutralized by our accursed adversaries, that all 
efforts wiU be inefTectual, and that we must sit down quietly and count 
the links of our chains ; but then again their system appears so mon- 
strous, so unprecedented, so ruinous, that I think the time will come 
that must make resistance a duty. 

" Remember me with respectful regards to my friend, ^Ir. Lloyd, 
and believe me very truly, dear sir, your obedient servant and 
friend, 

« H. G. Otis." 



166 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

1808-1809. 

Speech on the Bill for Fifty Thousand Volunteers. — Virulent Dem- 
ocratic Attacks. — The Duel at that Time. — Mr. Quincy's Views 
TOUCHING it. — Correspondence with Eppes. — The Four Frigates. 

— Speech on the Extha Session. — Renewed Virulence. — " Im- 

TEACHMENT OF JIr. JeFFERSON." — REPEAL OF THE F.MBARGO AND SUB- 
STITUTION OF Non-Intercourse. — Discomforts of Washington Life. 

— His Congressional Friends. — South Carolina Correspondence. 

— The Extra Session. — President and Mrs. Madison. — Visit to 
^louNT Vernon. 

IF Mr. Quincy really flattered himself that he had silenced his 
Democratic antagonists by his speech of December 7th, he 
was soon undeceived. The quiet of which he spoke in his letter 
to his wife of the 17th was but the lull between two storms. To- 
wards the close of the year a bill was introduced into the House 
for raising fifty thousand volunteers. This proposition caused au 
excited discussion between the contending parties. The argu- 
ment of the Administration was, that the nation should be pre- 
paring itself for the alternative of war, in case the Embargo was 
not effectual in bringing the belligerent powers to reason. The 
Opposition maintained that the precise object of the force should 
be known before it was voted. If it were intended for national 
defence, — if the Administration proposed to repeal the Embargo, 
and go to war, — they were ready to vote for it. If it were in- 
tended as a means of enforcing that act, they should resist it with 
all their might. Mr. Quincy, in his speech of December 30th, 
argued that the Embargo was unconstitutional, — not merely be- 
cause the power to regulate commerce could not have been 
intended to give Congress the power to destroy it, but especial- 
ly because that power could not be construed to authorize in- 
terference with the trade, not merely of the different States, but 
of the diffeient parts of the same State, with one another. It is 



SPEECH ON THE VOLUNTEER BILL. 167 

unnecessary to recapitulate his arguments, but his arraignment 
of the majority in Congress for having surrendered the commerce 
of the country into the hands of the Executive was stern and 
severe. Even a repeal of the Embargo by the unanira,xis vote 
of the House would be inoperative against a veto sustained by 
twelve Senators, — the full Senate then consisting of thirty-two 
members. He said : — 

" Yes, Sir, we once had a commerce. Once this House possessed 
the power to regulate it. Of all the grants in the Constitution, per- 
haps this was the most highly prized by the people. It was truly the 
apple of their eye. To their concern for it the Constitution almost 
owes its existence. They brought this, the object of their choice affec- 
tions, and delivered it to the custody of this House, as a tender parent 
would deliver the hope of his declining years, with a trembling solici- 
tude, to its selected guardians. And how have we conducted in this 
sacred trust ? Why, we have delivered it over to the care of twelve 
dry-nurses, concerning whose tempers we know nothing, for whose in- 
tentions we cannot vouch, and who, for anything we know, may some 
of them have an interest in destroying it. 

" Yes, Sir, the people did intrust us with that great power, — the 
regulation of commerce. It was their most precious jewel, richer 
than all the mines of Peru and Golconda. But we have sported with 
it as though it were common dust. With a thoughtless indift'erence, 
in the dead of night, we surrendered this rich deposit. It is gone ; 
and we have nothing else to do than to beg back, at the footstool of 
the Executive, the people's patrimony. Sir, I know the answer which 
will, and it is the only one that can, be given, — ' There is no fear of an 
improper use of this power by the President and Senate, — there is no 
danger in trusting this most excellent man.' Why, sir, this is the very 
slave's gibberish ! What other reason could the cross-legged Turk or 
the cringing Parisian give for that implicit confidence they yield their 
sovereigns, except that it is impossible that they should abuse their 
power V " 

These strictures caused a great stir on the Democratic side of 
the House. Extreme impatience was manifested, and frequent 
interruptions were made, chiefly by members from Virginia, — 
Mr. Eppes, the son-in-law of Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Nicholas, and 
Mr. Jackson.* Great violence of language and gross personali- 

* John \V. Eppes was Representative and Senator from Virginia, with two 



168 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ties were used towards him, much worse than one would infer 
from the printed debates. The Speaker, however, was fair, and 
overruled all attempts to call hira to order, and he finished hi? 
speech. His friends apprehended that an attempt raij^ht be 
made to dispose of him by the way of a duel, or in some more 
irregular way. The next day he wrote to his wife : — 

" Do not be alarmed at any harshness the papers may convey to 
you. I shall live down calumnies ; and as to tongue fighiinfj^ if any 
one has a longer weapon or a sharper, I must be content to contend at 
a disadvantage. 

'■'■January 10. — Lloyd showed me a letter from Boston stating 
that I had fallen in a duel with Campbell. It had not the most re- 
mote foundation ! I am, as I believe, on good terms with every 
member of the House. Some hate me a little, but treat me very well. 
Old Hillhouse has desired me to tell you never to believe such a report 
until you had it under his hand. On such occasions he was to be 
my second ; and he always fought from behind a tree with a toma- 
hawk." 

This piece of pleasantry on the part of IMr. Hillhouse,* then 
Senator from Connecticut, alludes to a supposed resemblance 
which he bore in his per.-^onal appearance to the Indian race. 
He used to affirm, jocosely, that he had aboriginal blood in his 
veins, and that he could strike straight across country to his 
end, literally, as he certainly did metaphorically, with the instinct 
of his tribe. The story goes that he was once challenged, and 
agreed to accept on condition that he was to be allowed his hered- 
itary privilege of a tree ! 

The duel was at that time still regarded as the ultima ratio for 
the settlement of political quarrels and private grievances, on 

intervals of two years each, from 1803 to 1819; died, 1823. Wilson C. Nicliolaa 
was Senator from 1799 to 1804; Representative from 1807 to 1809; Governor 
from 1814 to 1817; died, 1820. John G. Jackson was Representative from 1795 
to 1797, from 1799 to 1810, and from 1813 to 1817. 

* James Hillhouse was born, 1754 ; graduated at Yale College, 1773 ; served 
in the Revolutionary War; Representative from 1791 to 1794; Senator from 1794 
to 1810. He resigned to take charge of the School Fund of Connecticut, which 
flc managed with great success. He was Treasurer of Yale College for fifry 
years, up to his d?ath in 1832. 



THE DUEL AT THAT TIME. 169 

both sides the Atlantic. It was hardly ten years since Pitt 
fought with Tierney, and it was but a little later that Canning 
fought with Custlereagh, and it wa^ twenty years afterwards that 
the Duke of Wellington's duel with Lord Winchilsea took place, 
about the same time with that between Mr. Clay and Mr. Ran- 
dolph.* The duel was recognized, as far north as New York, as 
the necessary complement of the deficiencies of the law for 
redress in certain extremities. Duels were not uncommon in 
the neighborhood of New York, and the parties were seldom if 
ever molested because of them. The apparent exception in the 
case of Burr was owing rather to partisan feelings, and to the 
belief on the part of great numbers that the duel was a piecon- 
certed plot to put Hamilton out of the way, than to any moral 
objection to the manner of his taking off. And Burr took his 
place in the chair of the Senate at the next session without pur- 
suit, and ultimately returned to live out the rest of his life in New 
York. Even in New England, where the practice of duelling 
was so sternly condemned, there never was an instance, I believe, 
of one engaged in any of the few duels occui'ring there being pur- 
sued to punishment. The world had not yet outgrown that relic 
of barbarism, and the custom had not then been put so effectually 
under the ban of ridicule as in later times. My father took the 
ground, from the very beginning of his Congressional life, that 
he would neither be provoked into sending a cliallenge, nor 
shamed into accepting one. The moral and religious grounds 
on which this determination rested have been already stated in 

* Two or three curious analogies between these last two almost contempo- 
raneous duels were noted at the time. The Duke of Wellington was Prime 
Minister of England; Mr. Clay was Secretary of State, the post the most nearly 
approaching chat position under our form of government. Lord Winchilsea was 
a member of the Upper House of Parliament; Mr. Randolph, of the Senate of 
the United States. Lord Winchilsea was numbered among the straiter sect, or 
JIvangeljcal wing of the Church of England, if indeed he were not a Dissenter, 
and was prominent at the meetings of Bible Societies, Missionary Societies, and 
the like; Jlr. Randolph had also become, a few years before, what is commonly 
called ''a religious man." Neither of them, however, liad the moral courage 
to stand by their religious convictions when these came in collision with the 
world's code of honor, and neither, it is but just to the religions public tj 
Bay, ever recovered the prestige they thus forfeited. 



170 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

a letter to my mother in a previous chapter. In his private con- 
versation with the class of persons who would be likely to call 
him into the field, he did not dwell particularly on these consid- 
erations, which would probably be quite thrown away upon them. 
He would say to them : " We do not stand upon equal grounds in 
this matter. If we fight, and you kill me, it is a feather in your 
cap, and your constituents will think all the better of you for it. 
If I should kill you, it would ruin me with mine, and they never 
would send me to Congress again." This reasoning they could 
comprehend, and the consequence was, that he never was chal- 
lenged, though it was very currently rejtorted that he had been, 
with imaginary details. And he always said that he owed his 
strength and independence in the House largely to this well- 
known resolution of his. Many of the prominent Federalists did 
not take this ground, but professed their readiness to accept an 
appeal to " the tribunal of twelve paces," when duly made, and 
consequently were very cautious as to what they said that might 
provoke one. Not that they were any more afi-aid of taking the 
chance of a pistol-shot than their Democratic opposites, but they 
did fear the rebuke and condemnation which they would be sure 
to encounter at home in such case. Hence they lacked somewhat 
of that perfect freedom of speech which my father exercised. 
And I must do him the justice to say that, strong as was the lan- 
guage, fierce* the invective, and bitter the sarcasm, with which he 
assailed the Democratic Administration and their measures, his 
speeches are remarkably free from personal reflections and at- 
tacks on individuals, such as should demand bloody satisfaction 
according to the strictest construction of the canons of the law of 
honor. His antagonists gave him ample occasion to call them to 
account for their personal abuse of himself, carefully prepared 
with that design ; but I think, though he sometimes came pretty 
near the wind, he always avoided such personalities as wej-e held 
to make a hostile meeting inevitable among fighting men. And 
this may be one reason why he was never summoned to one. 

The following correspondence shows the readiness and the in- 
genuity with which the partisans of Mr. Jefferson sought to 
fasten a quarrel upon one who had attacked his policy with 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH EPPES. 171 

freedom and effect. To show the slight grounds of the offence 
which Mr. Eppes was anxious to find, I will quote the whole 
passage which contains it. Mr. Quincy had stated that language 
to the following effect had been used out of the House by the 
friends of the Embargo. " It is a measure of the Executive. 
Suppose this House should repeal it, and he negative the repeal, 
what effect would result but to show distracted counsels? In the 
present situation of the country nothing is so desirable as unan- 
imity." Mr. Jackson called for names. Mr. Nicholas angrily 
denounced the statement as an attempt " to palm upon those with 
whom he acted opinions which all must disclaim." Mr. Quincy 
went on : — 

"I have no intention to palm upon any gentleman sentiments which 
they disavow. I did not suppose that the gentlemen who entertained 
such sentiments would disavow them. I certainly shall not mention 
names. I do not think the argument derives any strength from the 
fact that such expressions have been used by any gentleman. They 
are natural and inevitable from the situation in which gentlemen are 
placed in relation to the Executive. Men willing to take off the Em- 
bargo, yet not willing to counteract the system of the President, are 
forced to adopt such reasoning as this. It is unavoidable when they 
come to reflect upon the powers which remain to this House in rela- 
tion to the repeal of this law." 

Tliis correspondence is dated on the day the debate appeared 
in the " National Intelligencer." 

Mr. Eppks to Mr. Quincy. 

"Washington, January 11th, 1809. 

" Sir : — I certainly did not understand from what I heard of your 
speech the other day, that it was your intention to insinuate that I 
was one of those disposed to support the Embargo merely because it 
was an Executive measure. 

" The following sentiment is printed in your speech : ' They are 
natural and inevitable from the situation in which gentlemen are 
placed in relation to the Executive.' 

" If, sir, you believe that in my public conduct I am influenced by 
my connection with the Executive, it is proper that I should know it. 
If a plume is to decorate your cap at the expense of my independence, 
let the sentiment be openly avowed. 



172 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" I call upon you, therefore, to say whether I am to consider the words 
I have quoted as intended by you to be applied to me. 
" I am, sir, your most obedient, 

"Jno. W. Eppes. 
" Hon. Mr. Quincy, House of Representatives." 

Mr. Quincy to Mr. Eppes. 

" House of Representatives, Washington City, 11 January, 1809. 

" Sir : — If a construction such as you intimate has been given to 
the expressions you quote, it is a justice I owe to myself to assure you 
that in using them I intended no individual application. The idea I 
meant to convey had nothing personal, but was altogether general. It 
■was this, — that such arguments were ' natural and inevitable from the 
situation in which gentlemen are placed in relation to the Executive,' 
in consequence of their having passed such a law, and it was intended 
to apply to ' men willing to take off the Embargo, yet not willing to 
counteract the system of the President.' This was the only bearing 
of my mind. Your particular relation to the Executive, until your 
letter was received, did not, in connection with this subject, once come 
within the scope of my thoughts. 

" I hope never to be necessitated, in mjj puhlic station, to resort to 
personalities. But when, if ever, my duty shall require it, you may be 
assured there will be nothing obscure or doubtful in my use of them. 
" I am, sir, your most obedient servant, 

"JosiAH Quincy. 
" Hon. John AV. Eppes." » 

The suspicions which the Opposition had conceived that this 
extraordinary levy of fifty thousand volunteers was designed for 
the more stringent execution of the Embargo, rather than for de- 
fence against foreign enemies, was confirmed by the bill sent 
down from the Senate for enforcing the act, and empowering the 
President to employ any portion of the land or naval forces or 
the militia for that purpose. The bill for the volunteers was 
suffered to drop in the House, but that for en^rcing the Embargo 
was passed by a strong party vote on the morning of the 6th of 
January, after a session of nineteen hours. Mr. Quincy and Mr. 
Gardenier, at six o'clock in the morning, after a night session, 
urged the delay of one day, declaring their wish to speak on the 
subject, and their inability to do so at that time through pure 



THE FOUR FRIGATES. 173 

bodily exhaustion. But their request was denied, and the bill 
passed. But although the will of the President was sufficient to 
carry this point, he was soon made to feel that the sceptre was 
about to pass from him. At the election of the previous Novem- 
ber, Mr. Madison was chosen President, and the days of Mr. 
Jefferson's public life were numbered. A relaxation of disci- 
pline was manifest in the ranks of his party, and his will was not 
now always law. If his saving soul dreaded one expense more 
than anotlier, it was that of the equipment of ships of ^ar. He 
shared, if he did not originate, the antipathy which the slavehold- 
ing States always manifested, but especially in the earlier days 
of our history, to a naval establishment, — arising, doubtless, 
from their jealoiisy of the commercial States, for whose benefit 
they conceived that a navy was particularly designed. The first 
open bi'cach in the Democratic ranks was on a bill for arming 
and manning four frigates, to be stationed near such ports, or to 
cruise off such parts of the coast as the President might direct. 
It seems odd to us, accustomed to hear of a navy of hundreds 
of vessels, and of millions of money cheerfully given to sustain it, 
to read of the violent debate which followed this proposition, and 
that for appropriating four hundred thousand dollars to carry it 
out. Mr. Campbell of Tennessee, the Administration leader in 
the House, Mr. Eppes of Virginia, Mr. Macon, and the Southern 
members generally, strongly opposed the measure. Mr. Williams 
of South Carolina said that, if the assertion of its friends was 
true, that we should never regain our rights without these frig- 
ates, he was ready to abandon them. That at the end of the 
Revolutionary war we had but one frigate, and the best thing we 
ever did was to give that one away. The State of South Caro- 
lina had fitted out a frigate in that war, and she had not yet rid 
herself of the debt thus incurred. Notwithstanding the opposi- 
tion of the Administration, the frigates were voted, sixty-four to 
fifty-nine, to the great annoyance of Mr. Jefferson, on whom this 
action was regarded as a virtual vote of censure. Mr. Williams 
declared that he would willingly give up all his earthly goods if 
that vote could be recalled, for he valued property and life less 
than the liberties of his country, which he believed would be 



174 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

destroyed in consequence of that vote ! However, the House 
refused to recommit the bill, and it became a law by Mr. Jef- 
ferson's signature. 

Mr. Quincy wrote to his wife as follows, at the time of this 
unexpected success : — 

" February 12, 1809. — We had the tightest voting I ever knew on 
a bill from the Senate for fitting out all the frigates. The question in 
favor was carried, 64 to 59. The result was astonishing to Campbell 
and the leaders of the Palace troops. They moved a recommitment 
of the bill, for further discussion, which after a day's debate was lost, 
58 to 59. So the frigates are to be fitted out. There will be a new 
attempt to change the decision. The event is terrible to Jefferson, 
as the law obliges him to do it. There is a palpable division between 
the friends of the present and future President. Cutts, Jackson, 
Bacon, &c. in favor of the equipment; Eppes, Taylor, &c. against 
it. The battle rages between the old allies. Some of my political 
friends interfered a little. I not at all, — from reasons personal and 
political." 

The next occasion which Mr. Quincy had of attacking the 
Embargo fell upon the 19th of January, on a bill for an extra 
session of Congress, to be held in May instead of December. 
This measure he opposed, as a mere sop to quiet the excitement 
of the people under their distress by raising the hope that the 
Embargo would then be taken off. His argument was, that this 
hope should not be held out unless a definite limit sliould be 
first fixed when the Embargo, now indeterminate in its duration, 
should exjDire, so as to restore the control of tlie question to 
Congress, and to the public sentiment of the nation acting upon 
Congress. The hope which the extra session held out he af- 
firmed to be a false one, intended to deceive the people. He 
charged the Administration with duplicity in assuring the British 
government "that the Embargo was 'a measure of precaution 
only,' while alleging to the American people that it was a meas- 
ure of coercion, which, if persisted in vigorously, would reduce 
Great Britain to our terms." And he taunted them with vapor- 
ing about the alternative of war, when they had no intention of 
resorting to it in any extremity, and when they were ridiculously 



SPEECH ON THE EXTRA SESSION. 175 

unprepared for it. The following are some extracts from tliis 
speech, which made a great noise and a great impression at the 
time : — 

" It is very painful to me, Mr. Speaker, to be compelled to place my 
opposition to this bill on ground resulting from the conduct of the Ad- 
ministration of this nation. I say, Sir, this is very painful to me, be- 
cause I have no personal animosity to any individual of that Adminis- 
tration. Nor, if I know myself, am I induced to this opposition from 
any party motive. But, Sir, acting in a public capacity, and reason- 
ing concerning events as they occur, with reference to the high duties 
of my station, I shall not, when I arrive in my conception at a just 
conclusion, shrink from any proper responsibility in spreading that 
conclusion before this House and nation. One thing I shall hope and 
certainly shall deserve from the friends of Administration, — the ac- 
knowledgment that I shall aim no insidious blow. It shall be made 
openly, distinctly, in the daylight. Be it strong, or be it weak, I in- 
vite those friends to parry it. If they are successful, I shall rejoice in 
it not less than they. 

" The proposition which I undertake to maintain consists of three 
particulars. First. That it was, and is, the intention of Administra- 
tion to coerce Great Britain by the Embargo, and that this, and not 
precaution, is and was the principal object of the policy. Second. 
That it was and is intended to persevere in this measure until it effect, 
if possible, the proposed object. Third. That it was and is the inten- 
tion of Administration to do nothing else effectual in support of our 
maritime rights. 

"I come now to my. third position. Not only that Embargo was re- 
sorted to as a means of coercion ; but that from the first it was never 
intended by Administration to do anything else effectual for the sup- 
port of our maritime rights. Sir, I am sick, sick to loathing, of this 
eternal clamor of ' War, war, war ! ' which has been kept up almost in- 
cessantly on this floor now for more than two years. Sir, if I can 
help it, the old women of this country shall not be frightened in this 
•way any longer. I have been a long time a close observer of what 
has been done and said by the majority of this House, and, for one, I 
am satisfied that no insult, however gross, offered to us by either 
France or Great Britain could force this majority into the declaration 
of war. To use a strong but common expression, it could not be kicked 



176 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

into such a declaration by either nation. Letters are read from the 
British Minister. Passions are excited by his sarcasms. Men get up 
and recapitulate insults. They rise and exclaim, ' Perfidy ! ' ' Rob- 
bery ! ' ' Falsehood ! ' ' Murder ! ' 
' Unpacking hearts with words, and fall a cursing, like a very drab, a scullion.' 

" Sir, is this the way to maintain national honor or dignity ? Is it 
the way to respect abroad or at home ? Is the perpetual recapitula- 
tion of wrongs the ready path to redress, or even the means to keep 
alive a just sense of them in our minds ? Are those sensibilities likely 
to remain for a long time very keen which are kept constantly under 
the lash of the tongue ? 

" Again, Sir, you talk of going to war against Great Britain, with, I 
believe, only one frigate and five sloops of war in commission ! And 
yet you have not the resolution to meet the expense of the paltry 
little navy which is rotting in the Potomac. Already we have heard it 
rung on this floor, that if we fit out that little navy our treasury will be 
emptied. If you had ever a serious intention of going to war, would 
you have frittered down the resources of this nation in the manner we 
witness ? You go to war, with all the revenue to be derived from com- 
merce annihilated, and possessing no other resource than loans, or 
direct or other internal taxes ! You ! a party that rose into power by 
declaiming against direct taxes and loans ! Do you hope to make the 
people of this country, much more foreign nations, believe that such is 
your intention, when you have reduced your revenue to such a con- 
dition ? 

" But we are about to raise an army of fifty thousand volunteers. 
For what purpose? I have heard gentlemen say, 'We can invade 
Canada.' But, Sir, does not all the world, as w.ell as you, know that 
Great Britain holds, as it were, a pledge for Canada, — and one suffi- 
cient to induce you to refrain from such a project, when you begin se- 
riously to weigh all the consequences of such invasion ? I mean that 
pledge which results from the defenceless state of your seaport towns. 
For what purpose would you attack Canada ? For territory ? N > ; 
you have enough of that. Do you want citizen refugees ? No ; you 
would be willing to dispense with them. Do you want plunder ? 
Tliis is the only hope an invasion of Canada can offer you. And is it 
not very doubtful whether Great Britain could not, in one month, 
destroy more property on your sea-board than you can acquire by the 
most successful invasion of that province ? Sir, in this state of things, 



SPEECH ON THE EXTRA SESSION. 177 

I cannot hear such perpetual outcries about war without declaring my 
opinion concerning them. 

" When I say, Sir, that this Administration could not be induced into 
a war, I mean by its own self-motion. AVar may — I will not assert 
that it will not — come. But such a state Administration do not con- 
template, nor are they prepared for it. On the contrary, I do be- 
lieve that the very tendency of all imbecile measures is to bring on 
the very event their advisers deprecate. Well did the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Troup) warn you, the other day, not to get into 
war. He told you it was the design of the Federalit^ts to lead you into 
that state, in order that they might get your places. Now I agree 
with the gentleman, if, by your measures, you get this country into 
a war, that you will lose your places. But I do not agree that in 
such case the Federalists would get them. No, Sir ; the course of 
affairs in popular revolutions proceeds not from bad to better, but 
from bad to worse. After Condorcet and Brissot came Danton and 
Robespierre. Well may gentlemen dread, on account of their places, 
being involved in war. For let the people once begin to look on the 
state of the country with that anxiety which the actual perception of 
present danger never fails to awaken, — let them realize the exigencies 
which that state involves, and compare with them your preparations for 
it, — let them see an army, in which perhaps a full half of your citi- 
zens cannot confide, — a small navy rendered less by natural decay, and 
even the few ships we have not in a state to give battle, — our treasury 
exhausted, as it will soon be, and all the ordinary sources of commer- 
cial supply dried away, — and they will hurl you from your seats, with 
as little remorse, with as much indifference, as a mischievous boy 
would shy so many blind and trembling kittens, six to a litter, into 
a horse-pond. Yes, Sir, be assured that war is the termination of 
your political power, unless you have the prescience to prepare an ef- 
fectual force, worthy of this nation, worthy of either adversary you 
may elect to engage. But remember you must rely upon something 
else than the paltry surpluses of your treasury, which, in fact, in one 
year Avill not exist, — upon something else than loans or direct taxes. 

" Sir, these are the general reasons which I have to urge against the 
adoption of this bill. In what I have said, my only view has been to 
exhibit to this House and nation the real motives which, as I ap- 
prehend, caused the original imposition of the Embargo, and which 
still operate in support of this bill. I do not believe that it is the in- 
tention of a majority of this House, at present, to continue this system 

8* L 



178 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUIXCY. 

after May. But T do believe that it is the intention of Administration. 
My design has been to recall the recollection of gentlemen to the dif- 
ference between the arguments now urged for its continuance and the 
official reasons at first given for its adoption. And I would warn 
them, that, if they mean to gain credit with the people for the inten- 
tion of repealing the Embargo in May, they will not obtain it, if they 
leave the next Congress at the mercy of the Executive by rising 
without affixing some limitation to it." 

The next day he wrote to his wife this account of the speech, 
and of its effect on friends and foes: — 

" Yesterday, on the bill for an extra session of Congress, I made an 
attack on Administration which has called out all the virulence of 
Eppes, Jackson, &c., and to-day I expect most severe animadversion 
from Campbell ; but my spirits were never better. The ground I took 
■was so grateful to my friends that I had a deputation from Frost's 
boarding-house, consis.ting of Tallmadge, Upham,* and Davenport, 
and another from the Washington Mess, consisting of Vandyke, 
Lewis, and Van Rensselaer,f to thank me, and to wish my speech 
should, as soon as possible, be put in a j^amphlet." 

That same day, January 20th, the attack upon him was re- 
newed with redoubled fury and virulence. It was, indeed, as he 
wrote to his wife — 

" the highest and warmest debate that perhaps this House ever wit- 
nessed. Campbell and Jackson came with a determination to oblige 
me to take the same measure to which they had reduced Gardenier. 
Accordingly, they levelled at me a series of as gross personalities as 
were ever uttered on a legislative floor. Fortified by a sense of duty 
to myself and my country, I had no hesitation to take the course of 
true courage, and repaid them with as much severe language as I had 
at command, and shall live down their calumnies." 

In tliis reply, after showing that none of his positions had been 
turned, and scarcely attacked, he went on : — 

" Whether the arguments I then urged were sufficient to justify my 

* Jabez Upham was born, 1764 ; graduated at Harvard University, 1785; 
practised law at Brookfield, Massachusetts; Representative from 1807 to 1810; 
died in 1811. He was one of my fatlier's most valued friends, to which fact I 
shall presently give his own testimony. 

t William Van Rensselaer, Representative from New York from 1801 to 1811 
died, 1845. 



EENEWED VIRULENCE. 179 

condemnation of the Administration, is a question referred to the de- 
cision of my fellow-citizens. From that tribunal I shall not shrink, and 
before it I am not afraid to meet any or all of my political opponents. 
To these arguments, certainly neither personal nor in any respect 
unparliamentary, what has been the reply ? Why, sir, ' false,' ' mali- 
cious,' 'defamatory,' 'cowardly,' 'base detraction,' 'dastardly act,' 'old 
Tory,' ' friend to Great Britain,' ' Nero,' ' Essex Junto,' and such like. 
Really, Mr. Speaker, I have no means of reply to such arguments as 
these. Absolutely, through defect of my education, I can make no 
answer to them. I never studied in the school of the scavenger ; I 
never took degrees at the oyster-bench ; I never sat at the feet of the 
fishwomen. The gentlemen who resort to such weapons have all the 

advantage of me If gentlemen expect to prevent investigations 

of public men and public measures by personal invectives, the nature 
and tendency of which are too obvious to be misunderstood, so far as 
it respects myself individujilly, they have mistaken their weapons and 
their antagonist. It is a choice satisfiiction to my mind, that it is not 
in the power of any individual, however malignant, (should such a 
character ever appear on this floor,) long to injure the reputation of 
any one whose private or public life does not co-operate with their 
malevolent intentions ; and I can assure the gentleman from Virginia 
(Mr. John G. Jackson), and every gentleman who has spoken in his 
vein, that I shall never be a half- worker with them probably in any- 
thing, but certainly not in the attempt to injure my own character. 
The sting of satire lies in its truth. The keenness of asperity is in 
the justness of its application. Where these fail, the sjjed arrow cuts 
the air harmless." 

That this rejoinder did not pacify the leaders of the Adminis- 
tration party may easily be imagined. The rest of the debate 
consisted of a succession of vituperative attacks upon him as bit- 
ter and personal as malice and !-kill could supply. Towards the 
close of the discussion, if such it might be called, Mr. Gardenier 
of New York was provoked into a brief protest against the con- 
duct and language of the Democratic speakers. Of this my 
father says : — 

" Gardenier was deeply irritated at the treatment I received, and 
took occasion to remark on the scandal of their proceedings. After 
some handsome compliments to me, and after observing on the obvious 
intentions of both Jackson and Campbell to reduce me to the necessity 
of fighting, he remarked that I had the fortune to dwell in a part of 



180 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the country where the term cowardice was not known, yet where 
Buch a resort, far from being an honor, would disgrace me in public 
opinion." 

This gave Mr. Quincy an opportunity of closing the debate by 
defining his position in this particular in an unmistakable man- 
ner. He said that the indignation Mr. Gardenier had expressed 
on account of the language which had been addressed to himself 
was very natural in a gentleman in his situation, and entitled 
him to a grateful acknowledgment. He then went on : — 

" But the course of my education has inculcated other sentiments, 
and instilled different feehngs. I have been taught that the just pride 
of life is only attained by acquiring real honor among honorable men ; 
and that this can only be effected by an undeviating course of public 
and private conduct, directed by sound principle, and terminating in a 
fulfilment of duty. Such a course I have attempted to pursue in this 
debate, though it has been my lot to be mistaken or misrepresented by 
almost every gentleman who has undertaken to reply to me. Towards 
neither of those who have seen fit to resort to such opprobrious lan- 
guage can T feel any resentment. They are welcome to all the advan- 
tages they can derive from it. 

" It is my fortune — perhaps in the opinion of some it is my misfor- 
tune — to represent not only a great, a wise, a powerful, an intelligent, 
but what in that country is valued more than all, a religious people. 
Gentlemen very well understand, when they use terms in debate to 
which the customs of this part of the country admit of but one species 
of reply, that such a resort is altogether prohibited by the public sen- 
timent of that part to which I belong. They know that, so far from 
being honor, it is disgrace, in my country, to avenge wrongs of words 
in the way which Is here, in a manner, necessary ; and that a success- 
ful issue, in such a mode of vengeance, would there terminate the hopes 
as well of political as of private honor of any man who should adopt 
it. And I shall not, in order to gain the temporary applause of men 
whom I cannot respect, forfeit the esteem of those whose good opinion 
is my most precious reward in this life. This is my situation. I am 
sent hereby such constituents to support their interests and maintain 
their rights. My duty in these respects I shall fulfil, nor shall I be 
deterred from performing it by the asperities or the violence of any 
friends of the present or any future Executive. 

" My argument, such as it was, will be laid before the people. 
Whether I have passed the boundary of parliamentary duty or deco- 



"IMPEACHMENT OF MR. JEFFERSON." 181 

rum, I cheerfully refer to their judgment. The observations made in 
reply to me have been one tissue of mistakes. I ought to have inter- 
rupted each gentleman at least twenty times ; but if gentlemen can- 
not, or will not, understand the bearing of an argument, it does not 

become me to be perpetually correcting them However, it was 

not my intention to enter even thus far into additional elucidations of 
this kind. Knowing the solid ground on which I stand, I have little 
solicitude concerning the effect of the diatribes of these gentlemen. 
The force of their weapon, if it have any, will only be felt in its recoil 
upon themselves; for I have great consolation in the certainty that 
where I am known nothing these gentlemen can say will injure me, 
and also in the further belief that the effect will not be greater where 
they are known." 

In his letters to ray mother written at the time of these encouu- 
ters, my father thus reassures her as to his personal safety: — 

" The duties I am performing are arduous, but they are necessary 
ones. I know my rights, and shall not be bullied out of them. You 
may fear, perhaps, some personal attacks out of doors. Be assured 
there is not the remotest danger. Not only personal fears on their 
own account will prevent that, but public considerations, and the great 
anxiety which begins to prevail on the state of things in New England. 
You need not fear that your husband is brow-beaten, much less terri- 
fied. I shall perform my duty, and give to any and all men, as occasion • 
calls, what politicians call a Rowland for their Oliver, and what the 
ladies term tit for tat." 

His friends, however, did not altogether share in his disbelief 
in the danger of a personal .assault outside the House. Mr. 
Lloyd one day brouaht him a pair of pocket-pistols, carefully 
loaded, and begged him to carry them in case of attack. He 
Liughed at the oflfer, and declined it ; and the result showed that 
his own judgment as to the probabilities of danger was correct. 
No attempt of the kind was ever made. 

The next event in his Congressional life was one that made 
much talk at the time, and is still sometimes spoken of. I refer 
to what is usually called! his motion for the impeachment of Mr. 
Jefferson, but which was strictly a motion for the preliminary in- i/ 
quiries which might lead to an impeachment. The ficts were 
these. General Benjamin Lincoln, of the army of the Revolu- 



182 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

tion, I. ad been appointed Collector of the Port of Boston by 
Wasbington. His infirmities of age and bealth made him desir- 
ous of resigning this post, and in November, 1806, he wrote to 
Mr. Jefferson, asking leave to do so at the close of the year. Mr. 
Jeflferson, in reply, asked him as a personal favor to retain it 
until the next March. To this he consented ; but not being re- 
lieved in March, and after vi'aiting until September, he again 
wrote, asking that his resignation might be accepted, he being 
entirely unable to discharge the duties of his ofiice. To this let- 
ter he never received any reply at all. The office was thus kept 
virtually vacant for more than two years as a provision for Gen- 
eral Henry Dearborn, the Secretary of War, after his term of 
office should expire. , The immediate provocation of Mr. Quincy's 
action was an article in the National Intelligencer, charging Gen- 
eral Lincoln with " deliberately conspiring with the disaffected, 
by pressing his resignation, in their infamous violation of the 
laws of their country, and with ingratitude for the forbearance 
of the government in retaining him so long in olfice in opposition 
to the wishes of a respectable class in the community " ! On the 
25th of January, Mr. Quincy made a speech reciting these facts, 
distinctly charged the government with tlie favoritism towards 
General Dearborn just mentioned, and concluded by moving for 
a committee of inquiry. This unexpected attack upon Mr. Jef- 
ferson created a great sensation in the House, and certainly 
showed the mover's opponents that they had not intimidated him 
by their attacks. An excited debate, or rather a series of per- 
sonal attacks on the mover of the resolutions, ensued, after which 
they were rejected by a unanimous vote, save one, — the name 
of JosiAH Quincy standing alone in the affirmative. He had 
not asked, and did not expect, any support from his party. In- 
deed, Senator Lloyd, who cordially approved his design, was 
the only person to whom he had communicated it beforehand. 
But, though thus defeated, he was victorious. He did all he 
expected to do. He made the conduct of Mr. Jefferson in the 
premises known to the world, and he procured the instant re- 
lease of General Lincoln. He made his motion at the opening 
of the session of the House, and before the Senate adjourned, 



REPEAL OF THE EMBARGO. 183 

on the same day, the nomination of General Dearborn was sent 
in for confirmation ! His political friends in Congress, though 
they did not support, approved of what he had done, and those 
in Boston were unanimous in their approbation. In his old age, 
speaking of this action, he says, " No public exertion of mine has 
been more fully justified by the reflections of a long life." 

The discontents caused by the Embargo had risen to such a 
height, that the Democrats, especially those from the Northern 
States, had become alarmed, and a general apprehension pre- 
vailed of a forcible resistance to the operation of the Enforcing 
Act. Mr. Jefferson attributed this defection in the ranks of his 
followers to " an unaccountable revolution of opinion and kind 
of panic, chiefly among the New England and New York mem- 
bers." This revolution of opinion and panic, for which Mr. 
Jefl^erson could not account, arose unquestionably from their 
more accurate knowledge of the state of feeling in their own 
part of the country, and the conviction that their own political 
prospects as public men would be rendered very doubtful if they 
obstinately adhered to this odious measure. Mr. Jefferson re- 
mained firm in his faith in the omnipotence of his political phi- 
losophy of compelling England to his terms through the destruc- 
tion of American commerce. Ilis faith was in fact too strong to 
be overcome by sight. For, after the first disturbance of trade 
was over, the English merchants, instead of asking for a repeal 
of the Qrders in Council, so that the American trade might be 
restored, washed a greater strictness to be given to them, so that 
they themselves might have the monopoly of the Continental 
trade, — thus hterally fulfilling the prophecy of Mr. Quincy 
when the Embargo was first proposed. The importation of cot- 
ton into England had been already absolutely forbidden, to crip- 
ple Continental manufactures, which Bonaparte wished to en- 
courage as a part of his system. The duty which the Orders 
required to be paid in England, as the condition of permission to 
reship merchandise to the Continent, having been represented by 
the Democratic orators as tribute paid to that haughty power, 
advantage was taken of their denunciations to prohibit the im- 
portation of any American productions whatever for the purpose 



184 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

of re-exportation, and Mr. Canning called the particular attention 
of Mr. Pinkney to this concession to the sensibilities of the 
American people ! But these things moved uot the constant 
soul of Jetferson, and he resisted to the last what he called " the 
fatal measure of repeal." But his influence was waning, as the 
days of his power drew towards their close. The fate of the 
Embargo was fixed, and all he could do was most reluctantly to 
consent to the substitution of Non-Intercourse with both bellige- 
rents for his favorite policy. This measure, though far from 
satisfying the needs of commerce, was so far an improvement on 
the one it replaced, that it opened the trade with the rest of the 
world, and removed the worst of the obstructions to the coast- 
wise traffic 

This bill gave rise to a long and animated debate, in the 
course of which many amendments were moved, but its original 
draft could not be altei-ed materially. Mr. Quincy took occa- 
sion, on the 1 5th of February, to recapitulate his arguments 
against the policy or the feasibility of coercion by means of com- 
mercial restrictions. No extended report of tliis speech appears 
to have been made, but the substance of his suggestions as to 
what the state of foreign relations demanded was to this effect, — 
that the Embargo should be raised, the Non-Importation Act al- 
ready in existence as to specified articles of British merchandise 
repealed, and the Non-Intercourse proposition abandoned. He 
wished " peace if possible ; if war, union in that war." J^'or this 
reason he wished negotiation to be left unshackled with those 
impediments. As long as they remained, the people in his part 
of the country would not deem an unsuccessful attempt at nego- 
tiation a cause of war. If they were removed, and an earnest 
and unrestricted attempt made at negotiation, and it should fail, 
they would join heartily in one. They would not, however, go 
to war to contest the right of Great Britain to search American 
vessels for British seamen ; for they believed, if American sea- 
men were properly encouraged, there would be no need of em- 
ploying foreign sailors. When the question was taken, he found 
himself, with the other extreme opponents of the Embargo, 
voting against the bill with its most extreme supporters. But 



REPEAL OF THE EMBARGO. 185 

though consistency with himself required him to vote against it, 
he rejoiced with the rest of the Federahsts at the substitution of 
the lesser evil for the greater, heightened, it inay be well be- 
lieved, by the knowledge of the discomfiture of Mr. Jefferson. 
The following extracts from letters to his wife give an idea of the 
varying feelings which the progress of the bill excited as it went 
forward. 

^^ February 2. — There is dreadful distraction in the enemy's camp 
on the subject of removing the Embargo. Jefferson and his friends are 
obstinate. Bacon and the Northern Democrats are equally determined 
that it shall be raised in March. After three days' debate, Dawson, a 
man of the palace, has moved to postpone the subject indefinitely. I 
believe the President will succeed in keeping this measure in its present 
state till June, when he will be snug at Monticello. Others think 
differently, and I hope that I may be disappointed. But my friends 
ought not to calculate upon it." 

" February 3. — The question of postponing the raising of the Em- 
bargo until June was lost by a vote of 73 against 40 in favor of it. 
Of course the chance brightens of its being got off by March. But 
my friends must not be too sanguine. Jefferson is a host, and is 
opposed to it, and if the wand of that magician is not broken, he will 
yet defeat the attempt. But I hope his power is drawing to an end in 
this world." 

" February 8. — Great caucusing is the order of the day and the night 
here. Administration is determined to rally its friends and postpone 
the removal of the Embargo till May. But I think they cannot suc- 
ceed. Bacon, I am told, stands firm and obstinate against all their 
solicitations, and even almost denunciations. However, they had an- 
other grand caucus last night. The event is unknown. Jefferson has 
prevailed." 

The result of the caucusing was the substitution of Non-Inter- 
course for the Embargo. Mr. Quincy expresses the general 
opinion of the time, that tiiis was the doing of Mr. Jefferson. 
"NVe now know that he was strongly opposed to any modification 
of his favorite measure. He only consented to it as a compro- 
mise, without which the Embargo would have been uncondition- 
ally repealed : — 

" February 29. — .... Jefferson has triumphed. His intrigues have 



186 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

prevailed, Non-Intercourse -will be substituted for Embargo. The Non- 
Intercourse bill passed, 81 ayes, 40 nays, all the Federalists voting 
against the bill, except Taggai't and Livermore." 

This was the last act of Mr. Jefferson's administration. On 
the 4th of March, 1809, his official life came to an end, and 
James Madison reigned in his stead. The Tenth Congress also 
died a natural death at the same time, leaving no very fragrant 
memory behind it. None of its predecessors, however it may 
have been with those that have come after it, had done so much 
mischief to the country, counterbalanced by so little good. There 
wei'e i'ew that were not glad that it was no more. 

Of his personal feelings and relations to the society of Wash- 
ington during the two sessions of the Tenth Congress, my father 
speaks thus : — 

" It is impossible to conceive the comfortlessness and desolation of 
feeling in which those two years were passed. I had, indeed, house, 
companion, food, and liberty of thought and action ; but I was sepa- 
rated from wife and children, in whom all my happiness was concen- 
trated. There were a few families interesting and respectable with 
whom I might have associated by riding two or three miles in the 
mud ; but with them I had little sympathy. Our acquaintance 
authorized only formal association, and we had for our conversation 
nothing but the politics and events of the day, of both which I had 
enough elsewhere, usque ad nauseam. All the settled inhabitants of 
the place were slaveholders or office-holders. All were interested in 
building up Washington. Appropriations out of the public treasury 
for its improvement were the chief objects of their thoughts. And 
those who were not willing, or even forward, to aid in these objects, 
soon perceived that they did not possess the qualifications essential to 
friendship and attentions. So that subserviency to local and personal 
interests was the obviously implied condition of social intercourse. To 
such terms the temperament of my mind did not permit me to submit. 
I therefore kept aloof from the inhabitants of Washington, and never 
volunteered visits or accepted attentions but such as were formal and 
specific. 

" In Congress my intercourse with those members who coincided in 
my political views was regulated by party rather than by personal 
friendship. The latter we had few and limited opportunities to culti- 
vate. The former was cordially manifested by encouragement and 



HIS CONGRESSIONAL FRIENDS. 187 

support of e\ ery public exertion of mine which harmonized with their 
feelings and interests. Our association on the floor, and at times in 
our respective lodgings, led to the reciprocation of friendships which 
remained intimate and cordial during the continuance of our mutual 
Congress life, but were soon broken by our subsequent separation 
in different and often far-distant States. Of this class I love to 
remember Pickman, Stedman, and Upham, of Massachusetts, Potter 
of Rhode Island, Champion, Pitkin, Dana, and Tallmadge, of Connect- 
icut, Chittenden of Vermont, Emott, Gardenier, and Van Rensselaer, 
of New York, Milnor of Pennsylvania, and Goldsborough of Mary- 
land,* with many others, once the objects of strong — alas! of tempo- 
rary — affection, which our subsequent locations in life did not allow 
us to cultivate, but who have always remained deeply seated in my 
memory and heart. 

" With the friends of Administration, who at that time composed the 
great majority of Congress, my intercourse for the most part was polite, 
but cold and general. The leaders of that party both from the South 
and the West were violent, overbearing, and insolent, both in manner 
and language. The slaveholders were accustomed to speak in the tone 
of masters. Bold in assertion, self-confident both from ignorance and 
vanity, they were ready to construe contradiction into insult ; and as 
they knew that Northern and Eastern men were restrained by their 
principles and those of their constituents, they would on the slightest 
provocation tender a duel, which they knew they could do with im- 
punity. 

" The men from the West were also bold in assertion and overbearing 

* Benjamin Pickman, a descendant of one of the oldest and most distinguished 
families of Massachusetts, born, 1763; graduated at Harvard University, 1784: 
an eminent merchant of Salem; Representative from 1809 to 1811; died, 1843. 
William Stedman, Harvard University, 1784, was a lawyer of large practice at 
Lancaster, Massachusetts; Representative from 1803 to 1810; died, 1831. Elisha 
R. Potter, a man of great talent and wit, was Representative from Rhode Island 
from 1796 to 1797 and from 1809 to 1815; died 1835. Epaphroditus Champion 
representejl Connecticut from 1807 to 1817; died, 1835. Martin Chittenden, born 
1769; graduated at Dartmouth College, 1789; Member of Congress from 1803 to 
1813, and afterwards Governor of Vermont; died, 1889. James Emott, born 
1770, was an eminent lawyer and Judge in New York; Member of Congress 
from 1809 to 1813; died, 1850. He was father of James Emott, now one of the 
Judges of the Supreme Court of that State. James Milnor, born, 1773; educated 
at the University of Pennsylvania; bred to the law; IMember of Congress from 
1811 to 1813; in 1814 took orders and became Rector of St. George's Church 
in New York; died, 1845. Charles W. Goldsborough, Memter of Congress from 
1805 to 1817; also Governor of Maryland; died, 1834. 



188 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

in manner, not from the habits of masterdom, but from their education 
and habits of professional life. For the most part they were lawyers 
accustomed to speak at barbecues and electioneering canvassings, and 
their assertions usually partook of the license of tongue incident to a 
wild and uncultivated state of society. With men of such states of 
mind and temperament, men educated in the strictness and under the 
laws which regulate New England debates could have little jjleasure 
in intercourse, less in controversy, and of course no sympathy. 

" I have thus cursorily accounted for the solitariness and depression 
of spirits which predominated at this period of my life, and which led 
me to resolve that I would not return to Washington again unless ac- 
companied by my family. I accordingly made an arrangement for the 
next session with a Mr. Woodhouse, the keeper of a boarding-house, 
for all his rooms and his stable, and thus secured to myself the seclu- 
sion and independence of a private family." 

I will here insert two letters received during this session from 
Mr. Henry W. Desaussure of Columbia, South Carolina, one of 
the most eminent men that State has produced. He was one of 
the small band of South Carolina Federalists who maintained the 
faith until the dispersion of that political church. In the interval 
between the two letters he was elected Chancellor by his political 
opponents, and held that office for many years. It will be seen that 
he entertained different views as to the value of the Union from 
those of his son, Mr. William. Ford Desaussure, a graduate of 
Harvard in 1810, and sometime United States Senator from 
South Carolina, \jiho was one of the main promoters of Secession. 
Mr. William Crafts, a letter from whom I also subjoin, was a na- 
tive of Boston, if I mistake not, who graduated in 1805 at Cam- 
bridge, and removed to Charleston, where he won for himself a 
distinguished position as a lawyer and man of letters. He wa^ 
a very brilliant talker, and always welcome to the best houses of 
Boston, at his frequent summer visits, and to none more welcome 
than to my father's. He died in the prime of life, in 1826. The 
vaticinations of Mr. Crafts as to the dissolution of the Union, 
coming as they did from Charleston, and his lamentations over 
the political subordination of South Carolina to Virginia, read 
oddly in the light of later days. 



SOUTH CAROLINA CORRESPONDENCE. 189 

Mr. Desaussure to Mr. Quincy. 

" Columbia, S. C, December 7, 1808. 

" Dear Sir : — It is not a pleasant thing to communicate intelli- 
gence of events unfavorable to our wishes. It is proper, however, 
that you should be apprised of the issue of our election of Electors. 
Our Legislature appoints in this State. That body is composed of a 
very great majority of Democrats. There are not more than twelve 
Federalists in the House of Representatives, and six in the Senate. 
The result you anticipate, for party spirit governs so absolutely that it 
sweeps away every other consideration. Neither the very high estima- 
tion in which General Pinckney universally stands here, nor the deep 
conviction which prevails that the times are very perilous, and require 
the greatest virtues and the greatest talents, civil and military, for the 
government of our country, could produce the smallest alteration. 
The arrangements of party must be sacredly adhered to. Accord- 
ingly it was settled in caucus that no persons should be elected Elec- 
tors but those who would vote for Mr. Madison and Mr. Clinton. 
Accordingly, gentlemen thus pledged were elected yesterday, and to- 
day they have exercised their automaton office by voting unanimously 
for Mr. Madison and Mr. Clinton (George). The Federalists, finding 
that there was not the shadow of a chance, resolved not to set up an 
opposition ticket, and most of them declined voting for Electors alto- 
gether. 

" We have before us the resolutions of the State of Virginia for 
altering the Constitution of the United States, by enabling the Presi- 
dent, on the address of both Houses of Congress, to remove any of 
the Judges from office, and for enabling the Legislatures to recall Sen- 
ators of the United States before the regular expiration of their term 
of service. No opinion can be formed what will be the issue here. I 
rather think that neither of them will be agreed to ; though the former 
is more likely to pass than the latter. I will advise you of the result 
of both. All our elections are Democratic. Mr. John Drayton was 
elected Governor to-day. 

" It is probable that an address of confidence in the Administration 
will be proposed, and, if so, it will certainly be carried. Indeed, it is a 
competition among the leading men here, who shall express most con- 
fidence in the Administration, and go greatest lengths with it. He 
who runs ahead in this career is most popular. Such is our situation. 

" We learn that you are warm in your debates, and that a division 
of the States is hinted at. I hope this greatest of evils is not about to 



190 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

fall upon us. I know that tbe Eastern States have borne much for the 
sake of union. I hope their patriotism will still bear more, till all 
hope of a better state of things be lost. I fear nothing but the discord 
of the States, and their separation. 

" I am, my dear sir, with much respect and esteem, yours truly, 

" Henry W. Desaussure." 

Chancellor Desaussure to Mr. Quincy. 

"Charleston, S. C, January 21, 1809. 

" Dear Sir : — I returned lately from the country, and had the 
pleasure of receiving your favor of the 18th December. I perceive, 
as you observe, ' that the New England Federalists have been true to 
their Southern friends, notwithstanding all the calumnies circulated 
concerning their disposition to desert them'; and that 'nothing can 
be more filse than that it is the wish of the leading men in the 
Northern States to break up the Union.' 

" Be assured no apprehensions have ever been entertained by the 
Federalists here on these pqints. The knowledge we have of the 
leading men in your country — of their liberality, candor, good sense, 
and good faith — made assurance doubly sure. We have no confi- 
dence in the visions of Virginia politicians. And we can never I'ear 
that those men in whose wisdom and virtue we place such unlimited 
confidence could ever desire to break up the Union. 

" What we fear is, that, in opposing the weak and wild policy of our 
Virginia masters, such a deep impression will at last be made on the 
minds of your people, smarting under the elfects of that policy, that 
their enmity will be excited, and their jealousy roused to such a de- 
gree as to sweep away all the attachments which bind them to the South- 
ern States. In that moment of resentment all the counsels of moder- 
ation, all the considerations of interest drawn from the infinite and 
indeed inappreciable value of the Union would be forgotten by the 
people, and the leading men who should attempt to restrain them 
would speedily lose their influence. The heads of parties seldom gov- 
ern them. Mr. Pulteney said truly, that the heads of parties in times 
of trouble were like the heads of serpents, moved on and governed by 
the tail. I beg, then, that our Eastern fiiends would pause, and avoid 
stirring up those passions among their own people whicli may become 
too strong to be controlled, and may lead to measures destructive to 
the Union and ruinous to the country. The headlong madness of the 
policy you condemn must sooner or later, by its ruinous effects, open 
the eyes of the people of the United States generally, and produce a 



SOUTH CAROLINA CORRESPONDENCE. 191 

change by tbe regular and constitutional mean of elections. If it 
does not, we shall furnish another example of the truth of the maxim, 
Quern Deus vult perdere prius dementat. 

" All must, however, be left to the wisdom and the yirtue and the 
moderation of the Federalists in your part of the Union. Here we are 
but a handful, borne down by numbers, and scarcely having a voice in 
the Legislature. At our late session, finding that it was utterly hope- 
less to attempt the smallest resistance, the few Federalists who were in 
the Legislature agreed not to take any part in what was passing rela- 
tive to national affairs. Accordingly, most of them did not vote for 
Electors, or upon any of the measures of the general government. 

" Many wise and good men view the course pursued by the Admin- 
istration as you do, and have the same apprehensions ; but they have at 
present no influence, and make no noise. They take a moderate share 
in the affairs of our own State, and are respected and permitted to have 
some share in the management ; and they will undoubtedly hereafter 
be ready to render more extensive service when they perceive the 
signs of the times favorable. You must not, however, count on us : 
the regeneration must be general and complete elsewhere before it 
reaches us. I am myself driven in great measure from an active part 
in the field of politics by an appointment to our Equity bench, which 
was as unexpected as it was unsolicited, from our Democratic Legisla- 
ture. Some old friendships with a number of the Democratic leaders, 
which existed before the formation of parties, and some difficulty in 
electing competent men (in their estimation) from their party, pro- 
duced this effect. A few of them, professing friendship, questioned 
me closely as to the extent of my politics, and, upon a full avowal of 
Federal principles, they declared themselves satisfied with my frank- 
ness, though not with my principles; but assured me that politics should 
not influence, them in judicial elections. 

" Your two speeches do honor to your talents, and would produce 
effect wherever the head of Medusa had not turned men into stone. 
" Yours, very truly, 

" Henry W. Desaussure. " 

Mr. Crafts to Mr. Quincy. 

" Charlestom, January 30, 1809. 

"My dear Sir: — I thank you for the communications which you 

have been so good as to make to me from Washington. These are 

truly acceptable ; for, being of the proscribed party, no member of 

Congress from this State would venture to hold correspondence with 



192 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

me. All the information we get, tlierefore, from them, is through 
their friends here, who give it to us in such manner as they please. 

" I do not permit tlie papers you send me to remain longer in my 
hands than to admit my perusal of them ; they are then circulated 
among your friends who still dare to call themselves Federalists, of 
whom there yet are many. This is our invariable practice ; so that 
the information you give to one of us is rendered useful, and is highly 
acceptable to many. 

" I could fill a sheet if I were to convey to you one half of the en- 
comium which is hourly passed on you for the manly, spirited, and 
honorable struggle you are making in Congress to save our country. 
I fear, alas ! it is vain, and will produce you the gratification only of 
having deserved, and of receiving, the high approbation of those 
whose good opinion you desire. 

" You will have long since seen, by our measures, that this State is 
as a parish of Virginia. Her politics and her measures govern us en- 
tirely, and we are, as I believe, perfectly contented to rise or fall with 
Virginia. That Virginia politics will dissolve this Union I have long 
since predicted, and I look for it at no distant day. You must be con- 
tented to have no commerce, or yield the point that it is to be pro- 
tected by the Union, and you must, at the same time, protect and 
defend us, or this Union cannot last long. I do not believe you will 
consent to these terms, and therefore I look for its speedy dissolution. 
I do indeed despair of the Republic. 

" I beg you to do me the favor to offer my respect and regard to 
Colonel Pickering and Mr. Lloyd, and to believe me, with sincere re- 
gard and respect, your friend and obedient servant, 

"W. Crafts." 

After the adjournment of Congress, my father hastened home 
and received a most cordial welcome from his personal and po- 
litical friends. The brighter prospects which the removal of the 
Embargo opened to commerce were attributed, in a great degree, 
to the reclamations which he, even more emphatically than the 
other Federal members, had made against that mischievous 
measure, and to the force of his representations of the dangerous 
discontents which it had occasioned. His vacation was but a 
short one, however, as the extra session began on the 22d of 
May. Accordingly he left Boston on the 12th of that month, 
and proceeded, as rapidly as sloops and stage-coaches could carry 



VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON. 193 

him, to Wasmngton, by the way of Newport, New York, Phila- 
delphia, and Baltimore. As this session was to be but brief, his 
resolution never to go to Washington again without his family 
did not attach to it. His journey must have been a very favor- 
able one, as he was only nine days on the road, arriving at his 
own Iiired house on the 21st. The next day he took his seat at 
the opening of the session, it being the first Congress of Mr. 
Madison's Administration. From his letters to his wife I extract 
the following sketches of his opinions and doings. 

" Mr. Madison's Message is modest and precise, but smacks a 
little of Jeffersonian slang in sentiment and expression. I at- 
tended a Pi-esidential levee for the first tijne. It was crowded 
by Federalists Snd Democrats, old opponents and new converts. 
The sovereign lady was gracious ; and it was a subject of con- 
gratulation that a married man was at the head of the nation. 
Parties will take a curious turn, or I am greatly mistaken. They 
charge Mrs. INIadison with being a Federalist, and some nomina- 
tions of Mr. Madison's indicate a disposition very different from 
that of his predecessor." 

" On the 3d of June, by invitation from Judge "Washington, 
I dined at Mount Vernon, with sixteen or twenty Federal mem- 
bers of Congress. The Judge was extremely pleasant and polite. 
The view at Mount Vernon is much more beautiful than I re- 
member it when we visited it together in the winter of 1806. 
The house is put in very good repaii', the gardens are well culti- 
vated, and the whole in sufficiently good order. At this season 
of the year the scenery is indescribably interesting ; there is a 
richness of foliage, and a fulness of flower and herbage, equal 
to anything I ever saw. Although things are not trimmed to 
the precision of Mr. Lyman's taste, yet nature appears in a wild, 
bursting luxuriance, and there is an air of unaffected negligence, 
if I may so speak, in the drapery of the place, that wins and 
fascinates. You see that it might be improved to the eye, and 
yet I doubt whether the attempt might not injure rather than 
help the efl^ect. At least these were my thoughts. 

"I had considerable conversation with Washington's old ser- 
vant Billy, whom I did not see when here before. Tiie old slave 

9 M 



194 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

could not talk of his master without tears. He said he did not 
think he was ever out of his mind for two hours together, and 
that he scarcely ever passed a night without dreaming of him." 

This brief session, which lasted but about a month, was marked 
b}' no debates of particular interest, and my father took very 
slight part in them. He and Mr. Lloyd continued to keep 
house together, and they were joined by Benjamin Pickman of 
Salem, whom he describes as his " most esteemed and amiable 
friend, who added a new, instructive, and most welcome asso- 
ciate " to the little household. Congress adjourned on the 28th 
of June, when he hastened home, as haste was then, and spent 
the summer at Quiney. 



THE ERSKINE ARRANGEMENT. 195 



CHAPTER IX. 

1809-1811. 

The Erskine Arranoement. — Rejected by England. — Federal Dis- 
appointment AND Democratic Chagrin. — Mr. Madison's Quarrel 
WITH Mr. Jackson, Mu. Erskine's Successor. — Mr. Quincy takes 
HIS Family to Washington. — Speech on the Jackson Imbroglio. — 
Thk Admission of Louisiana. — Speech upon it. — Diversities of 
Secessionism. — Correspondence with John Adams. 

THE quiet which marked this extra session was chiefly due 
to the hopes which were entertained of the repeal of the 
Orders in Council, in consequence of what was known at the 
time as " the Eivkine Arrangement." Mr. Erskine, the British 
Minister at Washington, of whom I have given some account in 
a previous chapter, being connected with this country by his 
marriage with an American lad}^, felt a natural and just ambition 
to be the means of reconciling the differences of the two coun 
tries, in both of which he had so deep an interest. For this pur- 
pose, he made as favorable representations as the facts would 
bear out of the better dispositions of the incoming, compared with 
those of the outgoing, Administration towards England, to Mr. 
Canning, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and suggested a new 
negotiation. Mr. Canning in reply authorized him to offer as 
reparation for the attack on the Chesapeake the disavowal of 
Admiral Berkeley's orders, and the restoration of the men 
proved to be American citizens taken out of that vessel. If this 
was accepted as satisfactory, his Majesty, " as an act of spon- 
taneous generosity," would make provision for the families of the 
men killed at the time of the outrage. But no mark of displeas- 
ure was to be demanded against Admiral Berkeley, beyond that 
manifested in his recall from the North American Station, — a 
mark of displeasure, be it said in passing, somewhat mitigated by 
his appointment to another and higher command. This pre- 
liminary adjusted, the Orders in Coimcil would be revoked as 



196 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

touching the United States, on condition that all acts of Non- 
Intercourse and of exclusion of public ships from American ports 
should be repealed as to England, while they were to remain in 
force as to France and her allies ; and that British meu-of-war 
should be authorized to capture any American ships violating the 
Non-Intercourse with France and the countries adopting her 
Decrees. Mr. Erskine was authorized to show the original de- 
spatch to the American government ; which, however, he did not 
do, probably in the belief that a departure from the letter of his 
instructions would be overlooked by his superiors, in view of the 
great advantages which would accrue to both nations from the 
I'estoration of commercial intercourse. Accordingly, in the Ar- 
rangement, as it was proclaimed on the 17th of April, 1809, the 
proposition for a provision for the families of the killed on board 
the Chesapeake did not contain the essential clause that it was 
"an act of spontaneous generosity" on the part of the King; the 
continuance of the Non-Intercoui\-e with France was left to be 
inferred ; and nothing was said of the authority to be given to 
British ships of war to capture American vessels violating that 
Non-Intercourse. The Federalists believed that Mr. Madison 
and Mr. Gallatin well knew that Mr. Erskine had exceeded his 
instructions, and that they had manipulated the young diplomatist 
•with the dexterity of old politicians to obtain terms which should 
enable them to fall back with some show of grace from their 
awkward position, — that, to use my father's figure of speech, 
" the old pikes had been more than a match for the young dace." 
It was awkwardly enough done, however. At the extra session 
the act excluding the ships of both belligerents from the Ameri- 
can ports was repealed, which was directly in violation of Mr. 
Erskine's instructions, and another continuing the Non-Inter- 
course Act, but permitting trade with Great Britain ! Tiiis 
strange circumlocution was meant, of course, to continue tiie 
Non-Intercourse with France in the form the least offensive 
to that mighty power. 

The general joy which the proclamation of the Erskine Ar- 
rangement in April had spread throughout the commercial region 
■was soon damped by the news that the British ministry had 



THE ERSKINE ARRANGEMENT. 197 

rejected it as unauthorized by their instructions to Mr. Erskine, 
and had censured him severely for making it. Technically, 
they were jiistifit^d in this action, undoubtedly ; but it may be 
questioned whether it were a wise or statesmanlike proceeding. 
England would gain by the Arrangement everything she de- 
manded, without renouncing the rights of search and impress- 
ment. Its acceptance would have prevented the war of 1812, 
and been greatly for the advantage of both countries. Its re- 
jection was largely owing, probably, to an insulting clause which 
Mr. Madison insisted upon adding to the one waiving any de- 
mand on his part for the further punishment of Admiral Berke- 
ley, to the effect that, nevertheless, " the President was not the 
less sensible of the justice and utility of such an example, nor 
les.'^ persuaded that it would best comport with what was due 
from his Britannic Majesty to his own honor " ! The King was 
naturally and justly offended by this affront, and it certainly had 
no tendency to procure the ratification of the Arrangement. Be- 
sides this provocation, however, the contempt felt for the United 
States as a fighting power, caused by the whole course of Mr. 
Jefferson's Administration as to national defence, and by the 
notorious want of preparation for war consequent upon it, and 
the belief of the British merchants that the monopoly of Euro- 
pean trade which our Embargo secured to them was more profit- 
able than the trade with America, doubtless helped to bring 
about the rejection of the Arrangement. Mr. Madison and Mr. 
Gallatin were deeply chagrined at this failure of their diplomatic 
strategy, and yet more by the disclosure of their friendly profes- 
sions towards England, which followed on the publication of Mr. 
Erskine's despatches. 

On the 9th of August, President Madison issued a Proclama- 
tion recalling that of the 17th of April, which had announced the 
Arrangement. The Federalists were cruelly disappointed by 
this termination of their hopes of better times, while the Demo- 
crats were disgusted at what they regarded as the humiliating 
nature of the advances made by the Administration to England. 
Having in vain attempted to induce Mr. Erskine to withdraw 
or qualify his statements, the President seemed determined to 



198 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

show that his former dispositions towards England were un- 
changed, by the coolness with which he received Mr. Francis 
J. Jackson, who was sent out to take Mr. Er^kine's place, and 
the obstacles he threw in the way of the new Minister's attempts 
at a fresh settlement of difficulties. He accordingly, very soon 
after Mr. Jackson's arrival, took occasion to find fault with his 
mode of transacting business, and to decline any further inter- 
course with him excepting by writing. Soon afterwards he took 
exception to some expressions of Mr. Jackson, which he con- 
strued into an intimation that he knew, at the time the Arrange- 
ment was negotiating, that Mr. Erskine had no authority tojnake 
it. Though Mr. Jackson disclaimed any such intention, Mr. 
Madison refused to accept any explanation, discontinued all dip- 
lomatic intercourse with him, and demanded his recall of his 
government. 

This was the state of aflfairs when the first regular session of 
the Eleventh Congress approached. About tiie beginning of 
November, 1809, my father, accompanied by my mother and two 
of their children, set out for Washington in his own carriage, and, 
after paying visits to their friends in New York, Princeton, and 
Philadelphia, took his seat at the opening of Congress on the 
27th of November. The house which he had taken for the win- 
ter was one of the block called " The Six Buildings," then the 
last towards Georgetown on the Pennsylvania Avenue. This 
session, the first in regular course of Mr. Madison's Administra- 
tion, did not open in the hopeful and cheerful spirit which had 
marked the extraordinary one in May. All parties were out 
of humor. The Madisonians were mortified at the failure of the 
Erskine Arrangement. The Federalists were sore from the dis- 
appointment of the hopes that plan had excited. And the Jef- 
fersonians were disgusted at the departure of the President from 
the temper towards England of their great chieftain, and from 
his principles and policy. It was of the first importance to Mr. 
Madison to obtain the sanction of Congress for his conduct to- 
wards the British Minister, that being the measure by which he 
hoped to retrieve his damaged popularity. Accordingly, a joint 
resolution was moved in the Senate by Mr. Giks of Virginia, on 



SPEECH ON THE JACKSON IMBROGLIO. 199 

the 5th of December, approving of the refusal of the President 
to hold diplomatic intercourse with Mr. Jackson ; cliaracterizing 
the expressions of the letter on which that refusal rested as 
"highly indecorous and insolent"; their repetition, after the 
President's denial of any knowledge of the insufliciency of Mr. 
Erskine's powers, as "yet more insolent and affronting"; and pro- 
nouncing the circular addressed by Mr. Jackson to the British 
Consuls, informing them of the discontinuance of his functions, 
" a yet more direct and aggravated insult to the American peo- 
ple and their government," and " an insidious attempt to excite 
their resentments and distrusts against their own government, 
through false and fallacious disguises " ; and pledging them- 
selves to stand by the President in his refusal, and to call into 
action the whole force of the nation to sustain him in it, if neces- 
sary. On this subject Mr. Quincy speaks as follows : — 

"To my mind the conclusions drawn from his (Jackson's) words 
were artificially forced, and the charges obviously exaggerated. I 
deemed myself, therefore, called upon to save the honor of Congress 
and the nation by doing what I could to prevent the passage of a 
resolution which I deemed dishonorable to both, by giving public sanc- 
tion to what seemed to me falsehood. 

" On the 28th of December I delivered one of the most carefully 
wrought and studied efforts I ever uttered. It had, of course, no effect 
at the time, and will probably have no interest in the future, the occa- 
sion being personal and temporary, but it was an attempt to remove 
the opprobrium of uttering for political purposes what to my mind 
was false. I cannot regret it, it being, in my judgment, one of the 
most labored, responsible, and powerful of my efforts." 

This speech is so compact and so closely argued, that it is im- 
possible to make extracts from it sufficient to give an idea of 
its logical force, excepting at a length exceeding my limits. 
Some s[iecimens of the exordium and the peroration are all for 
which 1 have room. 

" It is proposed. Sir, that this solemn assembly, the representative 
of the American people, the depositary of their power, and, in a con- 
stitutional light, the image of their wisdom, should descend fnm the 
dignity of its legislative duties to the task of uttering against an in- 
dividual the mingled language of indignation and reproach. Not sat- 



200 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

isfied with seeing that individual prohibited the exercise of his ofBciial 
character, we are invited to pursue him with the joint terrors of legis- 
lative wrath ; couched in terms selected to convey opprobrium and 
Infix a stigma. ' Indecorum' ' insolence,' ' affront,' ' more insolence' 
' more affront,' ' direct, premeditated insult and affront,' ' disguises, falla- 
cious and false' ; — these are the stains we are called upon to cast; 
these the wounds we are about to inflict. It is scarcely possible to com- 
prise within the same compass more of the spirit of whatever is bitter 
in invective and humiliating in aspersion. This heaped-up measure 
of legislative contumely is prepared for whom ? For a private, un- 
assisted, insulated, unallied individual ? No, Sir. For the accredited 
Mmister of a great and powerful sovereign, whose character he in this 
country represents, wfiose confidence he shares ; of a sovereign who is 
not b jund, and perhaps will not be disposed, to uphold him in mis- 
conduct, but who is bound by the highest moral obligations, and by 
the most impressive political considerations, to vindicate his wrongs, 
whether they affect his person or reputation, and to take care that 
whatever treatment he shall receive shall not exceed the measure of 
justice, and, above all, that it does not amount to national indignity. 

" Important as is this view of these resolutions, it is not their most 
serious aspect. This bull of anathemas, scarcely less than papal, is to 
be fulminated in the name of the American people from the high 
tower of their authority, under the pretence of asserting their rights 
and vindicating their wrongs. What will that people say, if, after the 
passions and excitements of this day shall have subsided, they shall 
find, and find I fear they will, that this resolution is false in fact, — that 
a falsehood is the basis of these aspersions upon the character of a 
public Minister ? What will be their just indignation when they find 
national embarrassment multiplied, perhaps their peace gone, their 
character disgraced, for no better reason than that you, their repre- 
sentatives, following headlong a temporary current, insist on making 
assertions, such as they may then, and I believe will, realize to be not 
authorized by truth, under circumstances and in terms not warranted 
by wisdom ? 

" Let us not be deceived. It is no slight responsibility which this 
House is about to assume. This is not one of those holiday lesolutions 
which frets and fumes its hour upon the stage and is forgotten forever. 
Very different is its character and consequences. It attempts to stamp 
dishonor and falsehood on the forehead of a foreign minister. If the 
allegation itself be false, it will turn to plague the accuser. In its 
train will follow severe retribution, perhaps in war, — certainly in ad- 



SPEECH ON THE JACKSON IMBROGLIO. 201 

ditlonal embarrassments, — and most certainly in, worst of all, the loss 
of that sentiment of self-esteem which, to nations as well as individuals, 
is the ' pearl of great price,' which power cannot purchase nor gold 
measure. 

" In this point of view all the other questions which have been agi- 
tated in the course of this debate dwindle into utter insignificance. 
The attack or defence of Administration, the detection of fault, or 
even the exposure of crime, are of no importance when brought into 
ccnpetition with the duty of rescuing this House and nation from the 
guilt of asserting what is false, and making that falsehood the basis 
of outrage and virulence. 

" I have thus, Mr. Speaker, submitted to a strict and minute scrutiny 
all the parts of this correspondence which have been adduced by any 
one in support of the fact asserted in this resolution. This course, 
however irksome, I thought it my duty to adopt, to the end that no 
exertion of mine might be wanting to prevent this House from passing 
a resolution which, in my apprehension, is pregnant with national dis- 
grace and other innumerable evils. 

" But let us suppose, for one moment, that the fact asserted in this res- 
olution is true, — that the insult has been offered, — and that the proof 
is not obscure and doubtful, but certain and clear. I ask, is it wise, is 
it politic, is it manly, for a national legislature to utter on any occasion, 
particularly against an individual, invectives so full of contumely and 
bitterness? Shall we gain anything by it? Have such expressions a 
tendency to strengthen our cause, or add weight and respectability to 
those who advocate it ? In private life do men increase respect or 
multiply their friends by using the language of intemperate abuse ? 
Sudden anger may be an excuse for an' individual. Inability to avenge 
an insult may afford an apology to him for resorting to these woman's 
weapons. But what can excuse a nation for humiliating itself to the 
use of such vindictive aspersions ? Can we plead sudden rage, — we, 
on whose wrath thirty suns have gone down ? Is this nation prepared 
to resort for apologies to its weakness, and to confess that, being unable 
to do anything else, it will strive to envenom its adversary with the 
tongue ? But our honor is assailed. Is this a medicament for its 
wounds ? If not, why engage in such retaliatory insults ? Which is 
best, — to leave the British monarch at liberty to decide upon the con- 
duct of his Minister, without any deduction or sympathy on account 
of our virulence, or to necessitate him, in measuring out justice, to put 
your intemperance in the scale against his imprudence ? Railing for 
9* 



202 LIFE OF JOSIAH QULNCY. 

railing is a fair offset all over the world. And I ask gentlemen to con 
eider whether it be not an equivalent for a constructive insinuation. 

" But if it would be wise and politic to refrain from uttering this 
opprobrious resolution in case the insult was gross, palpable, and un- 
deniable, how much more wise and politic, if this insult be only dubi- 
ous, and has, at best, but a glimmering existence ! But suppose the 
assertion contained in this resolution be, as it appears to many minds, 
and certainly to mine, false, I ask. What worse disgrace, what lower 
depth of infamy, can there be for a nation, than deliberately to assert a 
falsehood, and to make that falsehood the ground-work of a graduated 
scale of atrocious aspersions upon the character of a public minister? 

" But this resolution was devised for the purpose of promoting unan- 
imity. Is there a man in this House who believes it '? Did you ever 
hear, Mr. Speaker, that language of reproach and of insult was the 
signal for conciliation ? Did you ever know contending parties made 
to harmonize in terms of insult, of reproach and contumely ? No, Sir. 
I deprecate this resolution on this very account, — that it is much more 
like the torch of the Furies than like the token of friendship. Accord- 
ingly, it has had the effect of enkindling party passions in the House, 
which had begun, in some degree, to be allayed. It could not possibly 
be otherwise. A question is raised concerning a constructive insult. 
Of all topics of dispute, those relative to the meaning of terms are 
most likely to beget diversity and obstinacy in opinion. But this 
is not all. On a question merely relative to the construction of par- 
ticular expressions, all the great and critical relations of the nation 
have been discussed. Is it possible to conceive that such a question as 
this, on which the debate has been thus conducted, could be productive 
of anything else than discord and contention ? 

" For my own part, I have purposely avoided all reference to any 
of the great questions which agitate the nation. I should deem my- . 
self humiliated to discuss them under a resolution of this kind, which 
in truth decides nothing but our opinion of the meaning of Mr. Jack- 
son's language, and our sense of its nature ; and has, strictly speaking, 
nothing to do with any of the national questions which have been drawn 
into debate. 

"I declare, therefore, distinctly, that I oppose and vote against this 
resolution from no one consideration relative to Great Britain or the 
United States, — from none of friendship or animosity to any one man 
or set of men, — but simply and solely for this one reason, that in my 
conception the assertion contained in this resolution is a falsehood. 



SPEECH ON THE JACKSON IMBROGLIO. 203 

" But it is said that this resolution must be taken as ' a test of pa- 
triotism.' To this I have but one answer. If patriotism ask me to 
assert a falsehood, I have no hesitation in telling patriotism, ' I am not 
prepared to make that sacrifice.' The duty we owe to our country is 
indeed among the most solemn and impressive of all obligations. Yet, 
high as it may be, it is nevertheless subordinate to that which we owe 
to that Being with whose name and character truth is identified. In 
this respect I deem myself acting, upon this resolution, under a higher 
responsibility than either to this House or to this people." 

Among my father's papers is a handsomely printed copy of 
this speech, in pamphlet, of which he gives this account: — 

" One fact concerning this speecli is somewhat curious. While 
Jackson was under the anathema of Administration, and previous to 
his sailing, this speech was privately printed in New York, without the 
name of place or printer, and never circulated in this country. 

" A copy of it was given to me by a Democratic member of Congress, 
and the intimation given to me was that it was printed at the expense 
of Jackson, and taken by him to England to be shown to his govern- 
ment and circulated among his friends, as forming his defence on the 
charges brought against him by our Administration. 

" Of Jackson personally I knew nothing, and have no recollection 
of ever having seen him." 

• Of the rest of the session he speaks in the following terms: — 

" By the rejection of Erskine's arrangement Non-Intercourse was re- 
vived, and the party of the Administration were reduced to a state of 
absolute distraction. They knew not what to do. All parties were dis- 
satisfied with the restrictive system, — all admitted that it injured us 
more than it did Great Britain. But pride would not permit them to 
allow that the policy founded on its efficiency had failed. It would be 
an acknowletlgment that the Federalists had triumphed. The violent 
spirits declared that war was the only refuge from disgrace, and that, 
although we could not reach Great Britain by sea, we could revenge 
and save our unsullied honor in Canada ; and now for the first time the 
idea of vindicating commercial rights by the invasion of the Colonies 
began seriously to be agitated. 

" But such projects found no response in the spirit of Madison. To 
keep as near as possible to the policy of Jefferson, was the rule of his 
action, — to keep out of war, not offend Bonaparte, who was then ap- 
parently in rapid ascent to universal empire, by any coalescence with 



t 



204 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Great Britain, and to serve his demands as far as possible without 
openly aiding his designs. But Madison did not hold the sceptre of 
popular despotism, like Jefferson. He could not bring his followers 
into rank by a word ; and, without attempting to guide the car of 
state, he threw the reins upon the necks of both Houses of Congress, 
and left the leaders to extricate the nation out of the difficulties in 
which it was involved. Accordingly a succession of schemes, some 
mad, some foolish, all incompatible one with the other, constituted the 
labors of both Houses, in which I took no interest, except occasion- 
ally to show their absurdity or inadequacy to the end proposed. As to 
myself, the session was the happiest I ever spent at Washington. My 
wife and two of my family were with me. I had the whole house to 
myself, and had the members of Congress frequently to dine with me. 
My wife was the ornament and attraction of my establishment. She 
was admired for her manners and mind, was most kindly received by 
Mrs. Madison at the palace, and enjoyed the society and friendship of 
a select circle, both in Washington and Georgetown, among whom 
were the fiimilies of Peter, Lee, Teackle, Smith, Tayloe, Cranch, and 
a few others." 

The following letter from Chief Justice Marshall shows how 
fully that eminent man shared in the anxieties and the forebod- 
ings of the Federal party : — 

" Richmond, April 23, 1810. 

" Dear Sir : — Permit me to request that you will be so good as to 
charge yourself with the enclosed letter to Rev. Mr. Eliot. 

" The Federalists of the South participate with their brethren of the 
North in the gloomy anticipations which your late elections must in- 
spire.* The proceedIngs,of the House of Representatives already de- 
monstrate the influence of those elections on the affairs of the Union. 

" I had supposed that the late letter to Mr. Armstrong, and the late 
seizure of an American vessel, simply because she was an American, 
added to previous burnings, ransoms, and confiscations, would have 
exhausted to the dregs our cup of servility and degradation ; but these 
measures appear to make no impression on those to whom the United 
States confidfe their destinies. To what point are we verging ? 

" With very much respect and esteem, I am, dear sir, your obe- 
dient 

" J. Marshall." 

* At the March elections Elbridge Gerry, the Democratic candidate, had been 
chosen Governor of Massachusetts, and in New Hampshire John Laiigdon had 
defeated Goveruor Jeremiah Smith. 



THE ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 205 

This turbulent session closed about midnight on tlie 1st of 
May, and the next day my father left Washington with his family 
for Boston. The summer was spent as usual at Quincy. It 
soon passed away, and I find scarcely any record of it left. Not- 
withstanding his resolution of never going to Washington again 
miless accompanied by his family, my father was obliged to fore- 
go their society during the session of 1810- 11. Of his personal 
arrangements he gives this account : — 

" On the 26th of November, 1810, in company with Colonel Timothy 
Pickering, I took the stage, and, travelling by the way of Hartford and 
the usual route, reached Washington and took my seat in Congress on 
the 5th of December. I took a room at Coyle's boarding-house. I had 
my own servant, and was as happily established as possible when sepa- 
rated from my family. I visited as little as possible, and never except 
under a sense of obligation, devoting my whole time to the business of 
the session." 

The session of 1810-11 was a memorable one in the history 
of the United States. Then was established the precedent for 
the erection of States out of territory foreign to the original do- 
main of the nation, acquired through purchase or conquest, by 
the mere act of Congress, without recourse to the people in their 
sovereign capacity, which delivered over the political destiny of 
the nation for fifty years into the hands of the slaveholders. It 
was also a memorable epoch in my father's life. The earnest 
and impassioned resistance he opposed to that fateful measure, 
the disastrous consequences of which he foresaw and foretold, is 
j)erhaps the part of his public life which is the most generally 
known. It has been particularly recalled to mind since the 
breaking out of the Rebellion, and liis doctrines have been quoted, 
■ — sometimes with an approbation I am sure they do not deserve, 
— on both sides of the Atlantic, as identical with tliose of the 
Secession, and as ju-tifying and sustaining it. In order that my 
readers may judge for themselves whether or not he is justly ob- 
noxious to this satire in disguise, I shall lay before them tiie most 
material portions of his famous speech on this subject. It was 
delivered on the 14th of January, when the Enabling. Act was 
before the House ou its final passage. 



Ji06 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

"Mr. Speaker, — I address you, Sir, with an anxiety and distress of 
mind with me wholly unprecedented. The friends of this bill seem to 
consider it as the exercise of a common power, as an ordinary affair, a 
mere municipal regulation which they expect to see pass without other 
questions than those concerning details. But, Sir, the principle of this 
bill materially affects the liberties and rights of the whole people of 
the United States. To me it appears that it would justify a revolution 
in this country, and that in no great length of time it may produce it. 
When I see the zeal and perseverance with which this bill has been 
urged along its parliamentary path, when I know the local interests 
and associated projects which combine to promote its success, all op- 
position to it seems manifestly unavailing. I am almost tempted to 
leave, without a struggle, my country to its fate. But, Sir, while there 
is life, there is hope. So long as the fatal shaft has not yet sped, if 
Heaven so will, the bow may be broken, and the vigor of the mischief- 
meditating arm withered. If there be a man in this House or nation 
who cherishes the Constitution under which we are assembled as the 
chief stay of his hope, as the light which is destined to gladden his own 
day, and to soften even the gloom of the grave by the prospect it sheds 
over his children, I fall not behind him in such sentiments. I will yield 
to no man in attachment to this Constitution, in veneration to the sages 
who laid its foundations, in devotion to those principles which form its 
cement and constitute its proportions. What then must be my feelings? 
What ought to be the feelings of a man cherishing such sentiments, 
when he sees an act contemplated which lays ruin at the root of all 
these hopes ? — when he sees a principle of action about to be usurped 
before the operation of which the bands of this Constitution are no 
more than flax before the fire, or stubble before the whirlwind ? 
When this bill passes, such an act is done, and such a principle 
usurped. 

" Mr. Speaker, There is a great rule of human conduct which he who 
honestly observes cannot err widely from the path of his sought duty. 
It is, to be very scrupulous concerning the principles you select as the 
test of your rights and obligations, to be very faithful in noticing the 
result of their application, and to be very fearless in tracing and 
exposing their immediate effects and distant consequences. Under 
the sanction of this rule of conduct, I am compelled to declare it an 
my deliberate opinion, that, if this hill passes, the bonds of this Union are 
virtually dissolved ; that the States tvhich compose it are free from their 
moral obligations, and that, as it will be the riyhl of all, so it will be the 
duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation ; amicably if they 
can, violently if they must. 



SPEECH ON THE ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 207 

•' [Mr. Quincy was here called to order by Mr. Poindexter, Delegate 
from the Mississippi Territory, for the words in ItaHcs. After it was 
decided, upon an appeal to the House, that Mr. Quincy was in order, 
he proceeded.] 

"I rejoice, Mr. Speaker, at the result of this appeal. Not from any 
personal considerations, but from the respect paid to the essential rights 
of the people in one of their representatives. When I spoke of the 
separation of the States as resulting from the violation of the Constitu- 
tion contemplated in this bill, I spoke of it as a necessity deeply to be 
deprecated ; but as resulting from causes so certain and obvious as to 
be absolutely inevitable when the effect of the principle is practically 
experienced. It is to preserve, to guard, the Constitution of my coun- 
try, that I denounce this attempt. I would rouse the attention of gen- 
tlemen from the apathy with which they seem beset. These observa- 
tions are not made in a corner ; there is no low intrigue ; no secret 
machination. I am on the people's own ground ; to them I appeal 
concerning their own rights, their own liberties, their own intent, in 
adopting this Constitution. The voice I have uttered, at which gentle- 
men startle with such agitation, is no unfriendly voice. I intended it 
as a voice of warning. By this people and by the event, if this bill 
passes, I am willing to be judged whether it be not a voice of wisdom. 

" I know, Mr. Speaker, that the first clause of this paragraph has 
been read with all the superciliousness of a grammarian's triumph, — 
' New States may he admitted by the Congress into this Union,' — accom- 
panied with this most consequential inquiry, ' Is not this a new State 
to be admitted ? and is not here an express authority ? ' I have no 
doubt this is a full and satisfactory argument to every one who is con- 
tent with the mere colors and superficies of things. And if we were 
now at the bar of some stall-fed justice, the inquiry would insure vic- 
tory to the maker of it, to the manifest delight of constables and suit- 
ors of his court. But, Sir, we are now before the tribunal of the whole 
American people, reasoning concerning their liberties, their rights, 
their Constitution. These are not to be made the victims of the in- 
evitable obscurity of general terms, nor the sport of verbal criticism. 
The question is concerning the intent of the American people, the pro- 
prietors of the old United States, when they agreed to this article. 
Dictionaries and spelling-books are here of no authority. Neither 
Johnson, nor Walker, nor Webster, nor Dilworth, has any voice in this 
matter. Sir, the question concerns the proportion of power reserved 
by this Constitution to every State in this Union. Have the three 



208 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

branches of this government a right, at will, to weaken and outweigh 
the influence respectively secured to each State in this compact by 
introducing at pleasure new partners, situate beyond the old limits 
of the United States? The question has not relation merely to New 
Orleans. The great objection is to the principle of the bill. If this 
principle be admitted, the whole space of Louisiana — greater, it is said, 
than the entire extent of the old United States — will be a mighty thea- 
tre in which this government assumes the right of exercising this un- 
paralleled power. And it will be — there is no concealment, it is in- 
tended to be — exercised. Nor will it stop until the very name and 
nature of the old partners be overwhelmed by new-comers into the 
confederacy. Sir, the question goes to the very root of the power and 
influence of the present members of this Union. 

"But, says the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr Rhea), ' These peo- 
ple have been seven years citizens of the United States.' I deny it, 
Sir. As citizens of New Orleans, or of Louisiana, they never have been, 
and by the mode proposed they never will be, citizens of the United 
States. They may be girt upon us for a moment, but no real cement 
can grow from such" an association. What the real situation of the 
inhabitants of those foreign countries is, I shall have occasion to show 
presently. But, says the same gentleman, ' If I have a farm, have not 
I a right to purchase another fann in my neighborhood and settle my 
sons upon it, and in time admit them to a share in the management of 
my household ? ' Doubtless, Sir. But are these cases parallel ? Are 
the three branches of this government owners of this farm called the 
United States ? I desire to thank Heaven they are not. I hold my 
life, liberty, and property, and the people of the State from which I 
have the honor to be a representative hold theirs, by a better tenure 
than any this national government can give. Sir, I know your virtue. 
And I thank the Great Giver of every good gift, that neither the gen- 
tleman from Tennessee, nor his comrades, nor any nor all the mem- 
bers of this House, nor of the other branch of the Legislature, nor the 
good gentleman who lives in the palace yonder, nor all combined, can 
touch these my essential rights, and those of my friends and constit- 
uents, except in a limited and prescribed form. No, Sir. We hold 
these by the laws, customs, and principles of the Commonwealth of Mas- 
sachusetts. Behind her ample shield we find refuge and feel safety. 
I beg gentlemen not to act upon the principle that the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts is their farm. 



SPEECH ON THE ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 209 

"The immortal leader of our Revolution, in his letter to the Presi- 
dent of the old Congress, written as President of the Convention which 
formed this compact, thus speaks on this subject : ' It is at all times dif- 
ficult to draw with precision the line between those rights wliich must 
be surrendered and those which may be reserved ; and on the pres- 
ent occasion this difficulty was increased by a difference among the 
several States as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests. 
The debates of that period will show that the eflfect of the slave votes 
upon the political influence of this part of the country, and the antici- 
pated variation of the weight of power to the West, were subjects of . 
great and just jealousy to some of the best patriots in the Northern 
and Eastern States. Suppose, then, that it had been distinctly fore- 
seen, that, in addition to the effect of this weight, the whole popula- 
tion of a world beyond the Mississippi was to be brought into this and 
the other branch of the Legislature to form our laws, control our 
rights, and decide our destiny. Sir, can it be pretended that the pa- 
triots of that day would for one moment have listened to it? They 
were not madmen. They had not taken degrees at the hospital of 
idiocy. They knew the nature of man and the effect of his combina- 
tions in political societies. They knew that when the weight of par- 
ticular sections of a confederacy was greatly unequal, the resulting 
power would be abused ; that it was not in the nature of man to ex- 
ercise it with moderation. The very extravagance of the intended 
use is a conclusive evidence against the possibility of the grant of 
such a power as is here proposed. Why, Sir, I have already heard of 
six States, and some say there will be at no great distance of time 
more. I have also heard that the mouth of the Ohio will be far to 
the East of the centre of the contemplated empire. If the bill is 
passed, the principle is recognized. All the rest are mere questions 
of expediency. It is impossible such a power could be granted. It 
was not for these men that our fathers fought. It was not for them 
this Constitution was adopted. You have no authority to throw the 
rights and liberties and property of this people into ' Hotch-pot ' with 
the wild men on the Missouri, nor with the mixed though more re- 
spectable race of Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Americans who bask on the 
sands in the mouth of the Mississippi. 

" I will add only a few words in relation to the moral and political 
consequences of usurping this power. I have said that it would be a 
virtual dissolution of the Union ; and gentlemen express great sensi- 
bility at the expression. But the true source of terror is not the dec- 

N 



210 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUIXCY. 

laration I have made, but the deed you propose. Is there a moral 
pi'inciple of public hiw better settled, or more conformable to the plain- 
est suggestions of reason, than that the violation of a contract by one 
of the parties may be considered as exempting the other from its ob- 
ligations ? Suppose in private life thirteen form a partnership, and 
ten of them undertake to admit a new partner without the concur- 
rence of the other three, would it not be at their option to abandon 
the partnership at\er so palpable an infringement of their rights ? 
How much more in the political partnership, where the admission of 
new associates without previous authority is so pregnant with obvious 
dangers and evils ! Again, it is settled as a principle of morality 
among writers on public law, that no person can be obliged beyond his 
intent at the time of the contract. Now who believes, who dares as- 
nert, that it was the intention of the people, when they adopted this 
Constitution, to assign eventually to New Orleans and Louisiana a 
portion of their political power, and to invest all the people those 
extensive regions might hereafter contain with an authority over 
themselves and their descendants ? When you throw the weight of 
Louisiana into the scale, you destroy the political equipoise contem- 
plated at the time of forming the contract. Can any man venture to 
affirm that the people did intend such a comprehension as you now by 
construction give it ? Or can it be concealed that beyond its fair and 
acknowledged intent such a compact has no moral force ? If gentle- 
men are so alarmed at the bare mention of the consequences, let them 
abandon a measure which sooner or later will produce them. How 
long before the seeds of discontent will ripen, no man can foretell. 
But it is the part of wisdom not to multiply or scatter them. Do you 
suppose the people of the Northern and Atlantic States will or ought 
to look on with patience and see Representatives and Senators from 
the Red River and Missouri pouring themselves upon this and the 
other floor, managing the concerns of a sea-board fifteen hundred 
miles at least from their residence, and having a preponderancy in 
councils into which constitutionally they could never have been ad- 
mitted ? I have no hesitation upon this point. They neither will see 
it nor ought to see it with content. It is the part of a wise man to 
foresee danger and to hide himself. This great usurpation, which 
creeps into this House under the plausible appearance of giving con- 
tent to that important point. New Orleans, starts up a gigantic power 
to control the nation. Upon the actual condition of things there is, 
there can be, no need of concealment. It is apparent to the blindest 
vision. By the course of nature, and conformable to the acknowledged 



SPEECH ON THE ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 211 

principles of the Constitution, the sceptre of power in this country is 
passing towards the northwest. Sir, there is to this no objection. 
The right belongs to that quarter of the country : enjoy it. It is 
yours. Use the powers granted as you please. But take care in your 
haste after effectual dominion not to overload the scale by heaping it 
with these new acquisitions. Grasp not too eagerly at your purpose. 
In your speed after uncontrolled sway, trample not down this Constitu- 
tion. Already the old States sink in the estimation of members 
when brought into comparison with these new countries. We have 
been told that ' New Orleam^ teas the most important point in the 
Union.' A place out of the Union the most important place within 
it ! We have been asked, ' What are some of the small States when 
compared loith the Mississippi Territory f ' The gentleman from that 
Territory (Mr. Poindexter) spoke the other day of the Mississippi 
as ^ of a high-road between ' — good heavens ! between what, Mr. 
Speaker ? — why, ' the Eastern and Western States.' So that all the 
northwestern territories, all the countries once the extreme western 
boundary of our Union, are hereafter to be denominated Eastern 
States ! 

" New States are intended to be formed beyond the Mississippi. 
There is no limit to men's imaginations on this subject short of Cali- 
fornia and Columbia River. When I said that the bill would justify a 
revolution, and would produce it, I spoke of its principle and its prac- 
tical consequences. To this principle and those consequences I would 
call the attention of this House and nation. If it be about to intro- 
duce a condition of things absolutely insupportable, it becomes wise 
and honest men to anticipate the evil, and to warn and prepare the 
people against the event. I have no hesitation on the subject. The 
extension of this principle to the States contemplated beyond the 
Mississippi cannot, will not, and ought not to be borne. And the 
sooner the people contemplate the unavoidable result, the better, 
the more likely that convulsions may be prevented, the more hope 
that the evils may be palliated or removed. 

" Mr. Speaker, what is this liberty of which so much is said ? Is 
it to walk about this earth, to breathe this air, and to partake the com- 
mon blessings of God's providence ? The beasts of the field and the 
birds of the air unite with us in such privileges as these. But man 
boasts a purer and more ethereal temperature. His mind grasps in its 
view the past and future as well as the present. We live not for our- 
selves alone. That which we call liberty is that principle on which 



212 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the essential security of our political condition depends. It results 
from the limitations of our political system prescribed in the Constitu- 
tion. These limitations, so long as they are feithfully observed, main- 
tain order, peace, and safety. When they are violated in essential 
particulars, all the concurrent spheres of authority rush against each 
other ; and disorder, derangement, and convulsion are sooner or later 
the necessary consequences. 

" AVith respect to this love of our Union, concerning which so much 
sensibility is expressed, I have no fear about analyzing its nature. 
There is in it nothing of mystery. It depends upon the qualities of 
that Union, and it results from its effects upon our and our country's 
happiness. It is valued for ' that sober certainty of waking bliss,' 
which it enables us to realize. It grows out of the affections, and has 
not, and cannot be made to have, anything universal in its nature. 
Sir, I confess it, the first public love of my heart is the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts. There is my fireside, there are the tombs of my 
ancestors. 

' Low lies that land, yet blest with fruitful stores ; 
Strong are her sons, though rocky are her shores ; 
And none, ah ! none so lovely to my sight, 
Of all the lands which heaven o'erspreads with light.' 

*' The love of this Union grows out of this attachment to my native 
soil, and is rooted in it. I cherish it because it affords the best exter- 
nal hope of her peace, her prosperity, her independence. I oppose 
this bill from no animosity to the people of New Orleans, but from 
the deep conviction that it contains a principle incompatible with the 
liberties and safety of my country. I have no concealment of my 
opinion. The bill, if it passes, is a death-blow to the Constitution. It 
may afterwards linger, but, lingering, its fate will at no very distant 
period be consummated." 

To his wife he wrote as follows at the time : — 
" I answered my purpose fully. The House were so arrested by my 
boldness that they heard me throughout, and Poindexter has made my 
position so prominent that I have no fear but that the nation will do 
the same. Tliis I deem in principle and consequences the most 
important question that has ever been decided. If the people in our 
part of the Union are tame on this question, they deserve to be what 

they will be, daves, and to no very desirable masters 

" You have no idea how these Southern demagogues tremble at the 
word ' separation ' from a Northern man, and yet they are riding the 



DIVERSITIES OF SECESSIONISM. 213 

Atlantic States like a nightmare. I shall not fail to make their ears 
tingle with it, whenever they attempt, as in this instance, grossly to 
violate the Constitution of my country. Some of them were so out- 
rageous that they talked of a halter for your husband ; but upon the 
whole they have concluded to give me a reprieve until my ' constitu- 
ents ' put on the noose. 

" My landlord, Mr. Coyle, came home the other day and told me a 
clerk in one of the public offices had asked him how I behaved in his 
house ; for that one of the Massachusetts Democratic delegation told him 
that he thought I was crazy, adding that it was a complaint to which 
my family tvas subject. I told Mr. Coyle to tell that clerk to read my 
speech, and he must agree at least that there was great method in my 
madness. 

" Such ai^e the poor tricks of men ignorant of the rights which belong 
to public debate, and forgetful of what a public man owes not only 
to himself and his country, but to posterity. I Ijnow not how what T 
have said will be received by my constituents. I know how it ought to 

be. But the case is my own. I judge not The view I took of 

that question is not denied to be new here ; and had it not to resist all 
the force of Administration, powerful local interests, and temporary 
projects deeply interesting to the men in power, I have little doubt it 
would have been successful. With the people, and in future time, I 
have no question it will be duly appreciated." 

The bill passed the next day, January 15th, by a vote of 
seventy-seven yeas to thirty-six nays. 

Mr. Hildreth, in his History of the United States, pronounces 
the declaration with which this spee<'h began, — "that, if this bill 
passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved, that the 
States which compose it are free from their moral obligations, 
and that, as it is the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, 
to prepare definitely for a sejjaration, amicably if they can, 
violently if they must," — to have been "the first announcement 
on the floor of Congress of the doctrine of Secession."* How- 
ever this may be, I think that it will not require a labored argu- 
ment to prove to any one who has carefully read the speech, that 
the secessionism it contains is a very different doctrine from that 
preached in later times. Mr. Quincy did not maintain that the 

* IIildreth'8 History of the United States, Vol. III. p. 226. 



214 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Constitution contained within itself an inherent and indefeasible 
right of any member of the Union to withdraw from it at pleas- 
ure. He affirmed only that when the Constitution was flagrantly 
violated in the interest of a particular section of the country and 
of a fatal and encroaching institution, incompatible with the 
rights and liberties of the whole nation, the moral obligation to 
maintain it ceased, the right of revolution attached, and the con- 
stituent States might resume their several sovereignty, if such 
were their pleasure. The right of resistance to a high-handed 
violation of the fundamental compact, admitted to be such by the 
President who initiated it, himself the accepted high-priest of 
the Democracy, may be clearly distinguished from that claimed 
to break up tlie government on a question of revenue or on the 
election of a President not to the mind of the minority. The 
secessionism of Josiah Quincy was the vindication of the rights 
of freedom against the unconstitutional aggressions of slavery ; 
that of Jefferson Davis, the vindication of the rights of slavery 
against the constitutional restrictions of freedom. Whether Mr. 
Quincy spoke like a sagacious statesman and a true prophet, let 
the history of the next half-century answer, in the long suprem- 
acy of the slave-power, chiefly through the operation of the prin- 
ciple of this very bill, and in the convulsion which followed the 
first successful resistance to its absolute sway and unlimited ex- 
tension. Right or wrong, however, he himself adhered to the 
opinion thus expressed, that the moral obligation of the old 
States to remain in the Union was released by that Act, to the 
day of his death. 

He had, however, the most cordial assurances of approval of 
his speech from the most prominent members of his party. As, 
for example, Harrison Gray Otis, in a letter dated February 2d, 
1811, says: — 

"It [the speech] is in my opinion a very honorable monument of 
your fame, and proves as well the correctness of your prospective views 
of the destiny of your ill-fated country as of the force and eloquence 
by which you are capable of unfolding them. The time will come 
■when that speech will be regarded as prophecy, and when those who 
are infected by the apathy, or dismayed by the calamities, of the times, 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH JOHN ADAMS. 215 

will blush at the reflection of having withheld from you a more cordial 
and animating support." 

John Lowell of Boston writes, under date of February 13th, 
1811 : — 

" The boldness of your speech, while it has called forth the most vir- 
ulent abuse from the Democratic party, and cowardly disapprobation 
from some of your early feeble Federal friends, will do you more credit 
with posterity than any effort of your mind which you have heretofore 
made." 

In the height of the excitement occasioned by his speech, Mr. 
Quincy received the following cordial letter from John Adams, 
to which he replied on the 29th of January. 

Mr. Adams to Mr. Quincy. 

" QmNCT, January 15, 1811. 

" Dear Sir : — I thank you for two presents, the Message and the 
documents. Mr. Madison follows the example of Mr. Jefferson in this 
instance ; but is the difference between a speech and a message of much 
importance ? Does the aversion to speeches and the partiality for 
messages arise or proceed from the spirit of democracy or aristocracy ? 

" The glorious uncertainty of the law is a proverbial expression ; and 
why may we not speak of the glorious uncertainty of politics ? It gives 
you great legislators, philosophers, and orators ample scope for all your 
genius, experience, sagacity, and eloquence. AVhat can be more glo- 
rious for the notables of all parties ? 

" An old man, however, in his sixteenth lustre, would not willingly 
exchange for all your glories such a morning as this, when, unencum- 
bered with the least responsibility for anything, he sees the sun rising 
in an atmosphere as clear as crystal, after an imprisonment of a fort- 
night or three weeks by bad weather. 

" We have now the third flight of beautiful snow and fine sleighing. 
The two former were dissipated in two or three days. This I hope will 
last till you come home. The blustering and bullying of France and 
England disturb me much less than the freezing and thawing of this 
winter. I know, with submission, that all their power and all their 
policy can do no more finally than compel Hercules to feel his strength 
and show his wit. 

"I am, sir, as ever, your friend and humble servant, 

"J. Adams." 



216 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Mr. Quincy to Mr. Adams. 

"■Washington, 29th January, 1811. 

" Dear Sir : — I have the very great pleasure to acknowledge your 
favor of the 15th instant. Be assured, sir, that I appreciate the honor 
of your correspondence, and that it will be a precious reward to culti- 
■\ ite and deserve your esteem and confidence. 

" ' The uncertainty of politics ' is indeed as obvious as it is lamenta- 
ble. I cannot, however, unite with you in applying to it the epithet 
'glorious.' It is to me a most humiliating as well as depressing fad. 
Since there are no guides which are infallible, whom shall we follow ? 
Since there are noprinciples which seem absolutely settled, what foot- 
hold has reason, on which it may tread with firmness? All the lights 
of'reflection fail, all those of history are extinguished at the breath and 
the bidding of the spirit of party. The wisdom which our fathers 
taught us is despised ; and the liberty with which you and they made 
us free is little else than a cloak for licentiousness. Temporary pro- 
jects supersede all the prospective duties resulting from permanent 
relations ; and the pride and patronage expected from an extensive 
territory are taking place of that consolidating and masculine course 
of policy which distinguished the two first administrations. I know 
not what fates await us. And in the mysterious course pursuing I can 
see no other way than to cast anchor upon long-established principles, 
and trust my own and my country's fortunes, so far as any agency of 
mine has an influence upon it, to their firmness. 

" You will easily perceive, and J shall not conceal, that the course 
of my reflection has in some degree been shaped by the very responsi- 
ble stand I have taken against the admission- of New Orleans as a 
State into the Union. ^ly remarks on that subject will probably have 
reached you through the papers previously to this letter. I should 
have had the honor of transmitting them to you personally, and shall 
soon, but I have been waiting for a copy from Baltimore, where, I am 
told, they are publishing in a better type than that of our ordinary 
newspapers. Everything of this kind, now-a-days, takes a party lurch, 
and is attributed to party projects. Yet the truth is, the ground broken 
by me was as little anticipated by any one of my own party as by any 
of the opposite. Whether right or whether wrong, I was irresistibly 
driven to it by a sense of duty to my country. This I have followed 
instinctively, and shall, let it lead me where it will, and let it run me 
foul of whom or what it will. If the consequences I have there drawn 
be not true, if the anticipations be not real and reasonable, I confess 



CORRESPONbENCE WITH JOHN ADAMS. 217 

that the guides of my mind are deceptive, and that the lights Heaven 
has set up in it afford no distinct vision of things. I ho.ve not expected, 
nor do I expect, that the ground there defended will speedily be pop- 
ular. The evils are distant, at least twice the length of the nose, and 
that is half as far again as the majority of those who call themselves 
politicians deign to examine. The expressions at which exception 
was taken were selected, and the event not altogether unanticipated. 
My determination was to mark the opposition to the bill distinctly iu 
the public mind, and oblige it to be attentive to the subject. I hav» 
thus far attained my end. As to the rest I am indifferent. 

" The opportunity your letter gave me has drawn me into this ex- 
planation. But it is without any design to attract a reply from you on 
the topic. You may not incline either to censure or approve. This, 
however, was a case in which my own sense of duty was so clear and so 
imperious that, let whatever be the event, I can have no regret. I write 
to you with the more frankness, because, sir, I confess, there has al- 
ways been towards you and yours something of the filial and fraternal 
in my feelings, and whatever casual differences may arise, should any 
ever exist, they can never affect the pride I feel in, and my sense of, 
your friendship, or the very great respect with which I can never cease 

to be 

" Your obedient and very humble servant, 

"JosiAH QUINCY." 

To this letter President Adams replied on the 9th of Febru- 
ary, at length, and his answer may be found in his Works, Vol. 
IX. page 629. I subjoin a few extracts, from which it will be 
seen that he did not set up his own times as better than those of 
his coi'respondent. 

" I ought not to object to your reverence for your fathers, as you call 
them, meaning, I presume, the government and those concerned in the 
direction of public affairs, much less can I be displeased at your num- 
bering me among them. But to tell you a very great secret, as far as 
1 am capable of^omparing the merit of different periods, I have no 
reason to believe that we were better than you are. We had as many 
poor creatures and selfish beings in proportion among us, as you have 
among you ; nor were there then more enlightened men, or in greater 
number, than there are now. 

' Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate.' 
* Le grand Rouleau en haut ' cannot be read by our telegraphic tel- 
escopes 

10 



218 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" Your eloquence and oratory upon this question are worthy of youi 
father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfather. You spoke your 
own sentiments, I doubt not, with integrity, and the sense of a majority 
of your immediate constituents, and will not only increase your popu- 
larity with them, but extend your fame as a statesman and an orator, 
but will not influence at present the great body of the people in the 
nation. 

" Prophecies of division have been familiar in my ears for six-and- 
thirty years. They have been incessant, but have had no other efiett 
than to increase the attachment of the people to the Union. However 
lightly we may think of the voice of the people sometimes, they not 
unfrequently see further than you or I in many great fundamental 
questions. And you may depend upon it, they see in a partition of 
the Union more dangers to American liberty than poor Ames's dis- 
tempered imagination conceived, and a total loss of independence for 
both fragments, or all the fragments, of the Union." 

The events of the last six years have certainly shown that the 
patriarch was a prophet as well, and that he knew the American 
people not only better than their partisan leaders knew them, but 
better than they knew themselves. Though they had consented 
to compromise after compromise, and yielded concession after 
concession, rather than put the Union in jeopardy, yet when the 
madness whicli these very yieldings had nursed broke out into 
open rebellion, they held back no cost of blood and treasure that 
it might be preserved entire ; and this from the very instinct for 
the preservation of their personal freedom and national indepen- 
dence which the aged patriot had divined. 



SPEECH ON PLACE AND PATRONAGE. 219 

CHAPTER X. 

1811-1812. 

Speech on Place and Patronage. — On Non-Intercourse. — Washing- 
ton Irving. — Twelfth Congress. — Mr. Clay and the War Demo- 
crats. — Federal Perplexities. — Mr. Quincy votes for Military 
Preparations. — Offends a Portion of his Party. — Speech ojj 
Maritime Protection. 

THE next labor which Mr. Quincy undertook was scarcely 
less Herculean than the one just described. It was noth- 
ing less gigantic than to cleanse the Augean stable of political 
corruption. Early in the session, Mr. Macon * of North Caro- 
lina moved the following amendment to the Constitution: — 

" No Senator or Representative shall be appointed to any civil office, 
place, or employment under the authority of the United States, until 
the expiration of the Presidential term in which such person shall have 
served as Senator or Representative." 

On the 30th of January, this amendment being under consider- 
ation in committee of the whole House, Mr. Quincy moved that 
the following proposition be added to it : — 

" And no person standing to any Senator or Representative in the 
relation of father, brother, or son, by blood or marriage, shall be ap- 
pointed to any civil office under the United States, or shall receive 
any place, agency, contract, or emolument from or under any depart- 
ment or officer thereof." 

This amendment he then supported in a speech, from which 
the following extracts are taken : — 

" Upon this subject of offices my sentiments may, perhaps, be too re- 
fined for the present condition of human nature. And I am aware, in 

* Nathaniel Macon, born in North Carolina, 1757; served as a private in the 
Revolutionary War, having declined a commission. He was In the House and 
Senate from 1791 to 1828, — the longest term of Congressional service, I believe, 
on record. He was Speaker from 1801 to 1807; and President pro tern, of the 
Senate from 1825 to 1828; died, 1837. 



220 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

what I am about to say, that I may run athwart pohtical friends a 
well as political foes. Such considerations as these shall not, however, 
deter me from introducing just and high notions of their duties to the 
consideration of the members of the Legislature. I hold, Sir, the ac- 
ceptance of an office of mere emolument, or which is principally 
emolument, by a member of Congress from the Executive, as unworthy 
his station, and incompatible with that high sense of irreproachable 
character which it is one of the choicest terrestrial boons of virtue to 
attain. For while the attainment of office is to members of Congress 
the consequence solely of coincidence with the Executive, he who has 
the office carries on his forehead the mark of having fulfilled tlie con- 
dition. And although his self-love may denominate his attainment of 
the office to be the reward of merit, the world, which usually judges 
acutely on these matters, will denominate it the reward of service. 

" Such is the opinion which, in my judgment, ought to be enter- 
tained of the mere acceptance of office by members of Congress. But 
as to that other class of persons, who are open, notorious solicitors of 
office, they give occasion to reflections of a very different nature. 
This class of persons in all times past have appeared, and (for I say 
nothing of times present) in all times future will appear, on this and 
the other floor of Congress, creatures who, under pretence of serving 
the people, are in fact serving themselves, — creatures who, while 
their distant constituents, good, easy men, industrious, frugal, and un- 
suspicious, dream in visions that they are laboring for their country's 
welfare, are in truth spending their time mousing at the doors of the 
palace or the crannies of the departments, and laying low snares to 
catch for themselves and their relations every stray office that flits by 
them. For such men, chosen into this high and responsible trust, to 
whom have been confided the precious destinies of this people, and 
who thus openly abandon their duties, and set their places and their 
consciences to sale in defiance of the multiplied strong and tender 
ties by which they are bound to their country, I have no language to 
express my contempt. I never have seen and I never shall see any 
of these notorious solicitors of office for themselves or their relations 
standing on this or the other floor, bawling and bullying, or coming 
down with dead votes in support of executive measures, but I think 
I see a hackney laboring for hire in a most degrading service ; a poor, 
earth-spirited animal trudging in his traces with much attrition of the 
sides and induration of the membranes, encouraged by this special cer- 
tainty, that at the end of his journey he shall have measured out to 
him his proportion of provender. 



SPEECH ON PLACE AND PATRONAGE. 221 

" But I have heard that the bare suggestion of such corruption was 
a libel upon this House and upon this people. I have heard that we 
were in this country so virtuous, that we were above the influence of 
these allurements ; that beyond the Atlantic in old governments such 
things might be suspected, but that here we were too pure for such 
guilt, too innocent for such suspicions. Mr. Chairman, I shall not 
hesitate, in spite of such popular declamation, to believe and follow the 
evidence of my senses and the concurrent testimonies of contempora- 
neous beholders. I shall not in my estimation of character degrade this 
pt.'ople below, nor exalt them far above, the ordinary condition of culti- 
vattid humanity. And of this be assured, — that every system of con- 
duct or course of policy which has for its basis an excess of virtue in 
this country beyond what human nature exhibits in its improved state 
elsewhere, will be found on trial fallacious. Is there on this earth any 
collection of men in which exists a more intrinsic, hearty, and desper- 
ate love of office or place, — particularly of fat places ? Is there any 
country more infested than this with the vermin that breed in the cor- 
ruptions of power ? Is there any in which place and official emolu- 
ment more certainly follow distinguished servility at elections, or base 
scurrility in the press ? And as to eagerness for the reward, what is the 
fact V Let now one of your great office-holders, a Collector of the 
Customs, a Marshal, a Commissioner of Loans, a Postmaster in one 
of your cities, or any officer, agent, or factor for your territories or 
public lands, or person holding a place of minor distinction, but of con- 
siderable profit, be called upon to pay the last great debt of nature. 
The poor man shall hardly be dead, he shall not be cold, long before 
the corpse is in the coffin, the mail shall be crowded to repletion with 
letters and certificates, and recommendations and representations, and 
every species of sturdy, sycophantic solicitation by which obtrusive 
mendicity seeks charity or invites compassion. Why, Sir, we hear the 
clamor of the craving animals at the treasury-trough here in this capi- 
tal. Such running, such jostling, such wriggling, such clambering over 
one another's backs, such squealing because the tub is so narrow and 
the company so crowded ! No, Sir, let us not talk of stoical apathy to- 
wards the things of the national treasury, either in this people or in 
their Representatives or Senators. 

" But it will be asked, for It has been asked. Shall the Executive be 
suspected of corrupting the national Legislature ? Is he not virtuous ? 
Without making personal distinctions or references for the sake of ar- 
gument, it may be admitted that all Executives for the time being are 
virtuous, — reasonably virtuous, Mr. Chairman, — flesh and blood not- 



222 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

■withstanding. And without meaning in this place to cast any pnrtic- 
ular reflections upon this or upon any other Executive, this I will say, 
that if no additional guards are provided, and now after the spirit of par- 
ty has brought into so full activity the spirit of patronage, there never 
will be a President of these United States elected by means now in 
use, who, if he deals honestly with himself, will not be able on quitting 
his Presidential chair to address it as John Falstaff addressed Prince 
Hal, — ' Before I knew thee I knew nothing, and now I am but 
little better than one of the wicked.' The possession of that station 
under the reign of party will make a man so acquainted with the cor- 
rupt principles of human conduct, he will behold our nature in so hun- 
gry and shivering and craving a state, and be compelled so constantly 
to observe the solid rewards daily demanded by way of compensation 
for outrageous patriotism, that, if he escape out of that atmosphere 
without partaking of its corruption, he must be below or above the 
ordinary condition of mortal nature. Is it possible, Sir, that he should 
remain altogether uninfected ? What is the fact ? The Constitution 
prohibits the members of this and of the other branch of the Legisla- 
ture from being Electors of the President of the United States. Yet 
what is done ? The practice of late is so prevalent as to have grown 
almost into a sanctioned usage of party. Prior to the Presidential 
lerm of four years, members of Congress having received the privi- 
leged ticket of admission assemble themselves in a sort of electoral col- 
lege, on the floor of the Senate or of the House of Representatives. 
They select a candidate for the Presidency. To their voice, to their 
influence, he Is indebted for his elevation. So long as this condition 
of things continues, what ordinary Executive will, refuse to accom- 
modate those who in so distinguished a manner have accommodated 
him ? Is there a better reason in the world why a man should give 
you, Mr. Chairman, an office worth two or three thousand dollars a 
year for which you are qualified, and which he could give as well as not, 
than this, that you had been greatly instrumental in giving him one 
worth five and twenty thousand for which he was equally qualified? 
It is in vain to conceal it. So long as the present condition of things 
continues, it may reasonably be expected that there shall take place 
regularly between the President of the United States and a portion 
of both Houses of Congress an interchange, strictly speaking, of good 
offices." 

However deeply the innuendoes of this speech, as well as its 
direct assault.-!, might have been secretly resented, it was listened 



SPEECH ON PLACE AND PATRONAGE. 223 

to with apparent good-humor, and its hits greeted with respon- 
sive laughter. Indeed, those whom it misliked sought to parry 
its thrusts only by a reductio ad absurdiim. Mr. Wright* of 
Maryland moved to amend by providing that each Senator and 
Representative, on taking his seat, should furnish a table of his 
genealogy. Mr. Seybert said that this amendment would not 
answer the purpose of the mover, " because a man might marry 
while a member, and thus change his whole connection." Mr. 
Wright reduced his motion to writing thus : " Each member of 
the Senate and the House, when he takes his seat, shall file a list 
of his I'elatives precluded by said resolution," When the Com- 
mittee rose, the question came up on printing the amendments. 
Mr. Smilie t of Pennsylvania, was in favor of printing Mr. 
Macon's motion ; but doubted whether it would comport with 
the dignity of tlie House to print the last two (Mr. Quincy's and 
Mr. Wright's), which could scarcely be seriously meant. Mr. 
Troup I of Georgia, on the contrary, was in favor of printing. 
He thought the proposition (of Mr. Quincy) not only impor- 
tant, but essential to carry into effect the original motion ; and he 
had never heard a pi'oposition more ably supported than that of 
the gentleman from Massachusetts. Almost every sentiment he 
uttered had met his assent. Finally, Mr. Quincy's amendment 
was ordered to be printed, and Mr. Wright's refused the compli- 
ment of that ceremony. At a later date Mr. Quincy's amend- 
ment, as well as that of Mr. Wright, was rejected, and finally 
this self-denying ordinance itself failed from a lack of the requi- 
site two thirds in its favor, although it received a large major- 
ity of votes. 

Mr. Adams wrote a letter, February 18th, thanking Mr. 

* Robert Wright, Senator from Maryland, 1801-6; Governor, 1806-9; 
Member of Congress, 1810-17 and 1821-23. When Governor, in 1808, he dis- 
tinguished himself by pardoning some rioters who had been convicted and im- 
prisoned for tarring and feathering an unlucky English shoemaker, with high 
compliments upon their patriotism. Hildreth's History, Vol. HI. p. 95. 

t John Smilie, an Irishman by birth; served in civil and military capacities 
during the Revolution; Member of Congress, 1793-95 and 1799-1813, in which 
last year he died. 

t George M. Troup, born 1780; graduated at Princeton; Member of Congress, 
1807-15; Senator, 1816-18 and 1829-34; Governor, 1823-27; died, 1856. 



224 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Quincy for this speech, and praising its rhetorical merits in 
terms which, it must be allowed, are excessive, not to say hyper- 
bolical. He says : — 

" I owe you thanks for your speech on Place and Patronage. The 
moral and patriotic sentiments are noble and exalted, the eloquence 
masterly, and the satire inimitable. There are not in Juvenal nor in 
Swift any images to be found more exquisitely ridiculous than the 
Charlestown hack and the treasury swill-trough and piggery. But 
are you right in supposing the rage for office more eager and craving 
now than it has always been, or more grasping and intriguing for ex- 
ecutive offices and for legislative stations ? " * 

The following letters from two eminent men engaged in 
academic pursuits in States widely separated from one another 
belong to this place. Learned men in the professions, and hav- 
ing charge of the principal Universities and Colleges, were, with 
rare exceptions, Federalists of the most pronounced description. 
With President Smith my readers are already acquainted, as the 
friend and adviser of my mother in her girlhood. He was born 
in 1750, and graduated at Princeton in 1769. After serving as 
tutor there for a few years he went to Virginia, where he was 
one of the founders of Hampden-Sidney College in Prince Ed- 
ward County, and was its first President. He was afterwards 
recalled to Princeton, where he was first Professor of Theology 
and Moral Philosophy, and afterwards President. He was the 
author of several theological and ethical works, and died in 
1819. Professor Parker Cleaveland of Bowdoin College, Maine, 
of which institution he was the pride and ornament for more 
than forty years, stood in the foremost rank of the scientific men 
of his time as a chemist, and yet more as a mineralogist, and was 
a European as well as an American celebrity. He graduated at 
Harvard in 1799, and died at Brunswick, Maine, in 1858. 

President Smith to Mr. Quincy. 

" Princeton, Feb. 15, 1811. 
" Dear Sir : — Accept my thanks for the copies of your speeches 
which you have been good enough to transmit to me. One of them I 

♦ Life and Works of John Adanas, Vol. IX. p. 633. 



LETTER FROM PROFESSOR CLEAVELAND. 225 

had seen before, and had read with great pleasure. The other, on 
Patronage, was new, and uncommonly full of interest, and of amuse- 
ment, if anything can amuse an American which displays so pointedly 
the degradation of his country. You must daily see, hear, and feel the 
dishonors of this boasted Republic, and the blasting of all our flattering 
hopes, in the most afflicting manner. But in an assembly of beasts who 
have only horns, and no brains, is it not almost too hazardous to make 
them feel so deeply your sovereign contempt ? For to reform them 
seems to be beyond human power. Your only consolation must be 
shortly to get out of the hearing of their folly ; for under the feeling of 
its effects you and all of us must long and severely suffer. 

•' With the most sincere esteem and respect, I am, dear sir, y. m«. 
Ob'", and m°. h'^'^ serv'., 

" Samuel S. Smith." 

Professor Cleaveland to Mr. Quincy. 

" Brunswick, April 2, 1811. 

"Dear Sir : — Yours of the 21st March was received by the last 
mail. The notice to which you allude has never been received by 
me ; the only knowledge I had of my election * was by the private let- 
ters of friends. I am sorry that any additional trouble should arise to 
you on account of the notice having been mislaid. No inconvenience 
has arisen to me, as I have not visited Boston since the last autumn. 

" The election of Governor has this day taken place. In Brunswick 
we have twenty-five less majority for Mr. Gore than we had the last 
year. This is not to be attributed to a dereliction from Federalism so 
much as to the absence oi seamen and other accidental causes. 

" I much fear, however, that the reports respecting General Cobb's 
Church establishment (of which you have probably seen something in 
the newspapers) have had an unfavorable effect upon many of the 
Baptist denomination. 

" There is another story which has been circulated among the Re- 
publicans of this neighborhood, in which your name is employed. 

" It is in substance (as related at a Democratic caucus in this town 
the last week, at which Federalists were permitted to be present, but 
not to speak') as follows : — ' That a Mr. Daniel Reed, who, some five or 
six years since, was a Federal Representative in our State Legislature 
from Lewistoion, says he was then on a committee with yourself and 
others ; that you then observed it was necessary to have a Church 

• Probably, as a member of th^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 
10* O 



226 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

eslahlishmerit and an order ofnohUity, that measures were then taking 
to eilect these purposes ; and that, if necessary, England would assist 
in effecting these purposes.' 

" The Federalists intend ascertaining whether Mr. Rend has made 
the above assertions or not ; he is now a Democrat. 

" I presume, sir, you can hardly be aware of the various arts em- 
ployed and stories fiibricated in the District of Maine to affect the 
result of elections ; or if you can easily suppose all this, you cannot 
well calculate the extent of their balei'ul influence, without a knowledge 
oi i\i(i peculiar character of those who inhabit our back settlements. 

" Where youth are deprived of education, and all of public worship 
on the Sabbath, the mind is debased, and the influence of truth and 
sound argument is entirely lost. 

" I am, sir, with much respect, your &e., 

" Parker Cleaveland. 



The next speech of Mr. Quincy, and the hist he made in this 
Congress, was on. the bill to revive Non-Intercourse with Great 
Britain. The Non-Intercourse which replaced the Embargo at 
the close of Mr. Jefferson's Administration had expired by its 
own limitation in May, 1810. It was then enacted, that, in case 
either France or England should revoke their Decrees or Orders 
hostile to neutrality, the President should announce the fact by 
Proclamation, and in case the other belligerent should not do the 
same within three months, Non-Intercourse should revive as to 
the contumacious power. Bonaparte, through his Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, our old acquaintance Champngny, now Due de 
Cadore, laid a snare in the very sight of Mr. IMadison which yet 
was not laid in vain. Professing to be satisfied with the act of 
May, he informed General Armstrong, the American Minister, in 
August, that the Berlin and Milan Orders were revoked, and 
would cease to be operative after the 1st of November, provided 
England revoked her Orders in Council. Although Bonaparte 
had been soothing his sensibilities, wounded at his being joined 
with England in the Non-Intercourse of 1809, by seizing and 
confiscating all the American ships and cargoes he could lay his 
hands on, Mr. Madison was so rejoiced at this loop-hole of escape 
from his political embarrassments, th£\t he issued his Proclama- 



SPEECH ON NON-INTERCOURSE. 227 

tion on the 2d of November, annulling the Non-Intercourse Act, 
without waiting for the performance by England of the condition 
precedent. As she, not unnaturally, declined to perform it, the 
act revived as to her on the 2d of February, of which unpleas- 
ant fact Mr. Madison had again to inform the country by Proc- 
lamation. There being some question as to the legality of this 
measure, owing to the issuing of the Proclamation of November 
before the fulfilment of Bonaparte's conditions, it was thought 
best to re-enact Non-Intercourse as to England. Bonaparte, be 
it said in passing, continued to seize American ships under his 
Decrees, even after the arrival of the President's Proclamation 
in France, while he peremptorily refused satisfaction for his 
previous confiscations. This, however, he assured us, was only 
to insure our enforcement of Non-Intercourse with England. I 
subjoin the most material paragraphs of Mr. Quincy's speech. 

" The proposition contained in these amendments has relation to 
the most momentous and most elevated of our legtslative obligations. 
We are not now about to discuss the policy by which a princely pirate 
may be persuaded to relinquish his plunder ; nor yet the expectation 
entertained of relaxation in her belligerent system of a haughty .and 
perhaps jealous rival ; nor yet the faith which we owe to a treacherous 
tyrant; nor yet the fond, but frail hopes of favors from a British regen- 
cy, melting into our arms in the honeymoon of power. The obliga- 
tions which claim our observance are of a nature much more tender 
and imperious, — the obligations which as representatives we owe to 
our constituents, — the allegiance by which we are bound to the Ameri- 
can people, — the obedience which is due to that solemn faith by which 
we are pledged to protect their peace, their prosperity, and their 
honor. All these high considerations are materially connected with 
this policy. 

"It is not my intention, Mr. Speaker, to dilate on the general na- 
ture and effects of this commercial restrictive system. It is no longer 
a matter of speculation. We have no need to resort for Illustration 
of its nature to the twilight lustre of history, nor yet to the vibrating 
brightness of the human intellect. We have experience of its effects. 
They are above, around, and beneath us. They paralyze the enter- 
prise of your cities. They sicken the industry of your fields. They 
deprive the laborer and the mechanic of his employment. They sub- 
tract from the husbandman and planter the just reward for that 



228 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

product which he has moistened with the sweat of his brow. They 
crush individuals in the ruins of their most flattering hopes, and 
shake the deep-rooted fabric of general prosperity. 

" This, then, is the state of my argument, — that as this non-inter- 
course system is not fiscal, nor protective of manufactures, nor com- 
petent to coerce, and is injurious, it ought to be abandoned, unless we 
are bound to persist in it by imperious obligations. My object will 
be to show that no such obligations exist ; that the present is a favor- 
able opportunity, not to be sufi'ered to escape, totally to relinquish it ; 
that it is time to manage our own commercial concerns according to 
our own interests, and no longer put them into the keeping of those 
who hate or those who envy our prosperity ; that we are the con- 
stituted shepherds, and ought no more to transfer our custody to the 
wolves. 

" It is agreed on all sides that it is desirable to abandon this com- 
mercial restrictive system. But the advocates of the measures now 
proposed say that we cannot abandon it, because our faith is plight- 
ed. Yes, Sir, our faith is plighted ; and that, too, to that scrupulous 
gentleman. Napoleon, — a gentleman so distinguished for his own 
regard of faith, for his kindness and mercies towards us, for angelic 
whiteness of moral character, for overweening affection for the Amer- 
ican people and their prosperity. Truly, Sir, it is not to be ques- 
tioned but that our faith should be a perfect work towards this para- 
gon of purity. On account of our faith plighted to him, it is proposed 
to continue this Non-Intercourse. 

" Before, however, I proceed, I would premise that, while I am doubt- 
ful whether I shall obtain it, I am sure that the nature of my argument 
deserves the favor and prejiossession for its success of every member 
in the House. My object is to show that the obligation which we 
owe to the people of the United States is a free and unrestricted 
commerce. The object of those who advocate these measures is to 
show that the obligation we owe to Napoleon Bonaparte is a com- 
merce restricted and enslaved. Now as much as our allegiance is due 
more to the people of the United States than it is to Napoleon Bona- 
parte, just so much ought my argument to be received by an Ameri- 
can Congress with more favor and prepossession than the argument 
of those who advocate these measures. It is my intention to make 
my course of reasoning as precise and distinct as possible, because I 
invite scrutiny. I contend for my country according to my conscien* 



SPEECH ON NON-INTERCOURSE. 229 

tioiis conceptions of its best interests. If there be fallacy, detect it. 
My invitation is given to generous disputants. As to your stump- 
orators, who utter low invective and mistake it for wit, and gross per- 
sonality and pass it off' for argument, I descend not to their level, nor 
recognize their power to injui-e, nor even to offend. 

" We all recollect what a state of depression the conduct of Bona- 
parte in seizing our vessels, subsequent to the 1st of November, pro- 
duced, as soon as it Avas known in this House ; and what a sudden joy 
was lighted up in it when the news of the arrival of a French Min- 
ister was communicated. Great hopes were entertained and ex- 
pressed that lie would bring some formal revocation of the Decrees, 
or disavowal of the seizures, which might retroact and support the 
Proclamation. It was confidently expected that some explanation, at 
least, of these outrages would be contained in his portmanteau ; that 
under his powder-puff", or in his snuff"-box, some dust would be found to 
throw into the eyes of the American people which might so far blind 
the sense as to induce them to acquiesce in the enforcement of the 
Non-Intercourse without any very scrupulous scrutiny into the per- 
formance of the conditions by Bonaparte. But, alas ! Sir, the Min- 
ister is as parsimonious as his master is voracious. He has not conde- 
scended to extend one particle, not one pinch, of comfort to the 
Administration. From anything in the Messages of our President, 
it would not be so much as known that such a blessed vision as 
this new envoy had saluted his eyes. His communications preserve 
an ominous silence on the topic. Administration after all their hopes 
have been compelled to resort to the old specific, and have caused to 
be tipped up on our tables a cart-load of sand, grit, and sawdust from 
our metaphysical mechanic who seesaws at St. James's as they pull the 
wire here in Washington. Yes, Sir, a letter written on the tenth day 
of December last, by our Minister in London, is seriously introduced 
to prove, by abstract reasoning, that the Berlin and Milan Decrees 
had ceased to exist on the 1st of the preceding November, of whose 
existence as late as the 25th of last December we have, as far as the 
nature of things permit, ocular, auricular, and tangible demonstration. 
And the people of this country are invited to believe the logic of Mr. 
Pinkney, in the face of the fact of a continued seizure of all the ves- 
sels which came within the grasp of the French Custom-House from 
the 1st of November down to the date of our last accounts ; and in 
defiance of the declaration of our charge d'affaires, made on the 10th 
of December, that ' it will not be pretended that the decrees have in fact 



230 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

been reivked,'' and in utter discredit of the allegation cf the Duke of 
Massa, made on the 25th of the same month, which in effect declares 
the Berlin and Milan Decrees exist, by declaring ' that they shall remain 
suspended.' After such evidence as this, the question whether a rev- 
ocation or modification of the edicts of France has so occurred ' as 
that they cease to violate the neutral comvieixe of the United States,' 
does no longer depend upon the subtilties of syllogistic skill, nor is to 
be disproved by any power of logical illation. Jt is an affair of sense 
and feeling. And our citizens whose property has been since the 1st 
of November uniformly seized, and of which they are avowedly to be 
deprived three months, and which is then only to be returned to them 
on the condition of good behavior, may as soon be made to believe, 
by the teachings of philosophy, that their rights are not violated, as a 
wretch writhing under the lash of the executioner might be made 
by a course of reasoning to believe that the natural state of his flesh 
was not violated, and that his shoulders, out of which blood was flow- 
ing at every stroke, were in the quiet enjoyment of cuticular ease. 

" Cadore is directed to say to Mr Armstrong, ' In this new state of 
things, I am authorized to declare to you, sir, that the Decrees of Eerhn 
and Milan are revoked, and that after the 1st of November they will 
cease to have effect ; it being understood that, in consequence of this 
declaration, the English shall revoke their Orders in Council and re- 
nounce the new principles of blockade which they have wished to es- 
tablish ; or that the United States, conformably to the act you have 
just communicated, shall cause their rights to be respected by the 
English.' In this curious gallimaufry of time present and time future, 
of doing and refraining to do, of declaration and understanding, of 
English duties and American duties, it is easy to trace the design and 
see its adaptation to the past and present policy of the French Em- 
peror. The time present was used, because the act of the United 
States required that previously to proclamation the edicts ^ shall be' re- 
voked. And this is the mighty mystery of time present being used in 
expressing an act intended to be done in time future. For if, as the 
order of time and the state of intention indicated, time future had been 
used, and the letter of Cadore had said the decrees shall be revoked on 
the 1st of November next, then the Proclamation could not be issued, 
because the President would be obliged to wait to have evidence that 
the act had been effectually done. Now, as the French Emperor 
never intended that it should be effectuated, and yet meant to have all 
the advantage of an effectual deed without performing it, this notable 



SPEECH ON NON-INTERCOURSE. 231 

scheme was invented. And, by Frencli finesse and American ac- 
quiescence, a thing is considered as effectually done, if the declaration 
that it is done be made in language of time present, notwithstanding 
the time of performance is in the same breath declared to be in time 
future. Having thus secured the concurrence of the American Ad- 
ministration, the next part of the scheme was so to arrange the expres- 
sion that either the British government should not accede, or, if it did 
accede, that it should secure to France the point of honor, — a pre- 
vious revocation by the British ; and if they did not accede, that thei'e 
should be a color for seizures and sequestrations, and thus still further 
to bind the Americans over to their good behavior. All this is at- 
tained by this well-devised expression, ' It being understood that, IN 
CONSEQUENCE OF THIS DECLARATION, the English shall revoke.' 
Now Great Britain either would accede to the terms, or she would 
not. If she did, and did it, as the terms required, in consequence of 
this declaration, then it must be done previous to the 1st of November, 
and then the point of honor was saved to France, — so that thus 
France, by a revocation verbally present, effectually future, would at- 
tain an effectual previous revocation from the English. But if, as 
France expected. Great Britain would not trust in such paper securi- 
ty, and therefore not revoke previously to the 1st of November, then 
an apology might be found for France to justify her in refusing to 
effectuate that present, future, absolute, conditional revocation. 

" Mr. Speaker, let us not be deceived concerning the policy of the 
French Emperor. It is stern, unrelenting, and unrelaxing. So far 
from any deviation from his original system being indicated in this letter 
of the Duke of Cadore, a strict adherence to it is formally and carefully 
expressed. Ever since the commencement of ' his Continental System,' 
as it is called, the policy of Napoleon has uniformly been to oblige the 
United States to effectual co-operation in that system. As early as 
the 7th of October, 1807, his Minister Champagny wi-ote to Genei-al 
Armstrong, that the interests of all maritime powers were common, to 
unite in support of their rights against England. After this followed 
the Embargo, which co-operated effectually, at the very critical mo- 
ment, in his great plan of Continental commercial restriction. On the 
24th of the ensuing November he resorts to the same language, — "■ In 
violating the rights of all nations, England has united thun all b>j a com- 
mon interest, and it it for them to have recourse to force against her.* 
He then proceeds to invite the United States to take ' with the whole 
Continent the part of guaranteeing itself frorA her injustice,' and '■infov' 



232 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

cing her to a peace.' On the I5tli of January, 1808, he is somewhat 
more pointed and positive as to our efficient concurrence in his plan 
of pohcy. For his Minister Champagny then tells us, that ' /(w Ma- 
jesty has no doubt of a declaration of ivar against England hij the 
United States,' and he then proceeds to take tlie trouble of declaring 
war out of our hands, and volunteers his services gi-atuitously to de- 
clare it ia our name and behalf. ' War exists then, in fact, between 
England and the United States ; and his Majesty considers it as de- 
clared from the day on which England published her decrees.' And in 
order to make assurance doubly sure, he sequesters our vessels in his 
ports, ' until a decision may be had on the dispositions to be expressed by 
the United States' on his proposition of considering themselves ^as- 
sociated in the cause of all the powers ' against England. Now in all 
this there is no deception, and can be no mistake as to the purjiose 
of the policy. He tells us as plain as language can speak, that, ' by 
causing our rights to be respected,' he means war on his side against 
Great Britain, — that ' our interests are common,' — that he considers 
us already ' associates in the tear,' — and that he sequesters our prop- 
erty by way of security for our dispositions. 

" Bonaparte has not yielded one inch to our Administration. Now, 
as he has neither performed the act required by the law of May, 1810, 
nor produced the effect, nor accepted the terms it proposed, 
whence arise our obligations ? How is our faith plighted ? In 
what way are we bound again to launch our country into this dark 
sea of restrictions, surrounded on all sides with perils and penalties ? 

" The true nature of this Cadore policy is alone to be discovered in 
the character of his master. Napoleon is a univei-sal genius. ' He 
can exchange shapes with Proteus to advantage.' He hesitates at no 
means, and commands every skill. He toys with the weak ; he tam- 
pers with the mean ; he browbeats the haughty. With the cunning 
he is a serpent ; for the courageous he has teeth and talons ; for 
the cowering he has hoofs. He found our Administration a pen-and- 
ink gentry, — parchment politicians ; and he has laid for these ephem- 
eral essences a paper fly-trap dipped in French honey. Hercules, 
finding that he could not reach our Administration with his club, and 
that they were out of their wits at the sight of his lion's skin, has con- 
descended to meet them in petticoats, and conquer them spinning at 
their own distaff. 

" As to those who, afler the evidence now in our hands, denv that 
the Decrees exist, I can no more reason with them than with those 



SPEECH ON NON-INTERCOURSE. 233 

who stould deny the sun to be in the firmament at noonday. The 
Deci'ees revoked ? The formal statute act of a despot revoked by 
the breath of his servile Minister, uttered on conditions not per- 
formed by Great Britain, and claiming terms not intended to be per- 
formed by us ? The fatness of our commerce secure, when every 
wind of heaven is burdened with the sighs of our suffering seamen, 
and the coast of the whole continent heaped with the plunder of our 
merchants ? The den of the tiger safe ? Yet the tracks of those 
who enter it are innumerable, and not a trace is to be seen of a re- 
turning footstep. The den of the tiger safe, while the cries of the 
mangled victims are heard through the adamantine walls of his cave, 

— cries which despair and anguish utter, and which despotism itself 
cannot stifle ? No, Mr. Speaker, let us speak the truth. The act 
now proposed is required by no obligation. It is' wholly gi-atuito>is. 
Call it then by its proper name, — the first fruit of French allegiance, 

— a token of Transatlantic submission, — anything except an act of 
an American Congress, the representatives of freemen. 

" The present is the most favorable moment for the abandonment 
of these restrictions, unless a settled co-operation with the French Con- 
tinental System be determined. We have tendered the provisions of 
this act to both belligerents. Both have accepted. Both, as prin- 
cipals, or by their agents, have deceived us.- We taUc of the edicts 
of George the Third and of Napoleon. Yet those of the President of 
the United States, under your law, are fir more detestable to your 
merchants. Their edicts plunder the rich. His make those who are 
poor still poorer. Their decrees attack the extremities. His Procla- 
mation fixes upon the vitals, and checks the action of the seat of com- 
mercial life. 

" I know that great hopes are entertained of relief from the pro- 
posed law, by the prospect of a British regency. Between a mad 
monarch and a simpering successor, it is expected that the whole sys- 
tem of that nation will be abandoned. Let gentlemen beware, and 
not calculate too certainly on the fulfilment by men in power of pro- 
fessions made out of it. The majority need not go out of our own 
country, nor beyond their own practice, to be convinced how easily 
in such cases proud promises may eventuate in meagre performance. 

" The whole bearing of my argument is to this point. It is time to 
take our own rights into our own beeping. It is time, if we will not 
protect, to refrain from hampering by our own acts the commerce of 
our country. Put your merchants no longer under the guardianship 
and caprice of foreign powers. Punish not, at the instigation of for- 



234 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

eigners, your own citizens for follo-^ving their righteous callings. We 
owe nothing to France. We owe nothing to Great Britain. We owe 
everything to the American people. Let us show ourselves really in- 
dependent ; and look to a grateful, a powerful, and then united peo- 
ple for support against every aggressor." 

As Congress would expire in a few days, the Federalists en- 
deavored to defeat the bill by speaking against time, and the 
debate vs^as carried on through two nights, as the Democratic 
majority refused to adjourn, excepting for one brief interval. 
The bill was finally forced through at the point of the Previous 
Question, then for the first time decided by the House, on appeal 
from the Speaker, to have the effect of putting an end to debate. 
With this ignoble legislation the Eleventh Congress gave up the 
ghost. 

It was on one of these nights that John Randolph, as my 
father used to tell, took his turn at talking against time. After 
midnight, when most of the members had composed themselves 
to sleep as best they might, Randolph began to utter a discon- 
nected farrago of long words, apropos to nothing in the uni- 
verse. Gradually the whole House, from Mr. Speaker down- 
wards, awoke and looked with wondering eyes upon the orator, 
supposing that much speaking had made him mad. His purpose 
thus answered, and the ear of the House secured, turning sud- 
denly upon an honest Dutch member from New York, who never 
ventured on a longer speech than the zealous yeas and nays with 
which he sustained the Administration, and who was watching 
open-mouthed to see whereunto this thing would grow, Randolph 
cried out, in his shrill, deliberate tones, pointing his " slow, un- 
moving finger " at his prey, " And now, Mr. Speaker, if you 
will believe it, the honorable gentleman from New York denies 
the truth of what 1 have been saying ! " " Good God, Mr. 
Speaker," sputtered forth the mystified Dutchman, " I have done 
nothing of the kind ! " while the House, now thoroughly aroused, 
shook with unextinguishable laughter. 

In a letter to his uncle by marriage, the Reverend Asa Pack- 
ard of Marlborough, Massachusetts, he thus recapitulates the do- 
ings of the session, and their effect on himself: — 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 235 

" The ruin of the commercial cities seems determined. What with 
the refusal to renew the United States Bank, the grasping love of 
our Administration for its beloved Bonaparte, and the effect of the 
proposed Non-Intercourse, as much distress impends over the seaboard 
as it has ever witnessed since the Peace of 1783. Where we shall 
land, Heaven only knows. But the jealousy and hatred of commerce 
increases in its power daily. And unless met with unanimity in our 
quarter of the country, it will perish with that of Europe in the Con- 
tinental System of the French Emperor. To make sure work, they are 
about bringing into both Houses of Congress Senators and Represent- 
atives from New Orleans, and from beyond the Mississippi. If it be 
borne by New England, there is an end to our weight in the councils 
of the nation. I sent you my remarks on that subject. It has made 
me the object of very gross abuse. Nothing less than 'Burr's fate' 
and ' a halter ' have been threatened your poor friend. But as they have 
consented I should be hung by my constituents, this is some comfort, 
and will operate as a reprieve, if not as an acquittal. All this is sys- 
tematic. No man must speak independently Avithout having set upon 
him a bully or a blackguard, who are kept in kennel, fleshed for the 
sport, by the friends of the Administration. However, ' Gallio careth 
for none of these things.' He sleeps, eats, and works, grows fat, and 
is comfortable." 

One part of this statement he corrected in his old age. " The 
bullies and blackguards," he says, " were not ' kept in kennel,' 
but stood on the floor of the House constantly in their own 
proper persons, from the West or the South, unbridled in tongue, 
and using language learnt in the backwoods or among their 
slaves, ready to mistake, misrepresent, and to fight." From 
these scenes and such associates he hastened home, on the ad- 
journment, to his family and his beloved country-seat, where he 
passed the summer. 

During the winter of 1810-11, Mr. Washington Irving was 
introduced to my father by Mr. Robert Walsh, as appears from 
the following extract of a letter from that gentleman, dated Feb- 
ruary 2, 1811. The letter was chiefly one of thanks for a Re- 
view of tlie Life and Works of Fisher Ames, which my father 
had written for the Boston Anthology, of which Mr. Walsh 
speaks in terms of the highest commendation. He then goes 
on: — 



236 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" I have devoured your late speech, and most heartily coincide with 
you In your doctrine that the admission of Louisiana into the confed- 
eration is hostile to the spirit of tlie Constitution. I had the pleasure 
of transmitting to you the first number of my work. Mr. Irving, a 
young gentleman of New York, had the goodness to take charge of it, 
and I presume, therefore, it reached you in good time. We think and 
talk of nothing but the Bank in this city." 

My father seems to have made a very lively and lasting im- 
pression on the imagination and memory of the young man of 
letters. Visiting our family at Cambridge in 1832, he gave an 
animated descripti.on of his Washington experience, and particu- 
larly of my father's speeches, during that memorable winter. 
He said tha't be well remembered him walking up and down the 
lobby while the House were debating points of order raised dur- 
ing his speeches, " like a lion," to use Mr. Irving's own words, 
"lashing his sides with his tail!" Twenty-five years later I had 
the happiness of a brief visit to Mr. Irving at Sunnyside, — brief, 
but never to be forgotten, — as the bearer of a letter of introduc- 
tion from my father. He at once referred to his visit to Wash- 
ington that winter, and spoke in high terms of admiration of my 
father's speeches in the House. And referring to the interrup- 
tions to which he was subjected, and his way of meeting them, 
Mr. Irving etnployed the same figure of speech, and, indeed, the 
identical words he had used to describe him at Cambridge. I re- 
gard the fact of Mr. Irving's retaining so A'ivid a recollection of 
my father's parliamentary oratory, after all the varied experience 
of his life, which had brought him in contact with all the distin- 
guished men of his time in Europe and America, as a very satis- 
factory proof that it must have been of a high order of excellence. 

The Twelfth Congress was summoned by President Madison 
to meet a month earlier than usual, in consequence of the alarm- 
ing aspect of foreign affairs. Mr. Quincy accordingly left home 
for Washington in October, and took his seat on the 4th of No- 
vember, at the opening of the session. He again established 
himself at Coyle's boarding-house, where he formed one of a 
very pleasant mess, consisting of Messrs. Goodrich, Dana, and 
Pitkin, of Connecticut, and Milnor of Pennsylvania. 



MR. CLAY AND THE WAR DEMOCRATS. 237 

Not long after his arrival in Washington, he was sadJened 
by the news of the death of Jabez Upham of Brookfield, Massa- 
chusetts, " who," he says, " had been in former sessions one of 
my most intimate companions, a man of an excellent heart, and 
a true friend, whom I respected and loved, and whom I still en- 
twine with the chords of my heart." These feelings of friendship 
were waimly reciprocated by that excellent and eminent man, as 
may be seen in the following passage of a letter from him to my 
father, written about a year before his death : — 

" Should I attempt to describe the obligations to you, as I feel thera 
impressed upon my heart, I am sure I should fail to express myself 
with that correctness and delicacy which the purity of your tastes and 
feelings would require. This, therefore, I must waive. And I do it 
with great satisfaction, because I well know you must be convinced 
that you have excited in my bosom a friendship the most sincere and 
ardent, which must remain unabated so long as that bosom shall con- 
tinue to be the depository of a single virtuous or grateful sentiment." 

Henry Clay of Kentucky was elected Speaker of the House, in 
the place of Joseph B. Varnum of Massachusetts, who had super- 
seded Colonel Pickering in the Senate. Mr. Clay, on the other 
hand, had resigned his seat in the Senate, and been returned to the 
House, for the purpo-e, as was well understood, of being elected 
Speaker, it being important that so influential a position, at so crit- 
ical a time, should be held by a man of more than the mere routine 
ability of Mr. Varnum. It was the first time that Mr. Clay had 
ever been a member of the Lower House, — a circumstance which 
made his elevation to the Speakership the more significant. It was 
a sign that the extreme Anti-British party, of which he was the 
leader, which looked to war as not only the rightful remedy for 
the national injuries, but as one that would be profitable to the 
Western section of the country at least, was gaining the ascendant 
over the more moderate Democrats, with Mr. Madison at their 
head. Notwithstanding the hostility to England which Jefferson 
and Madison had stimulated for so many years, neither of them 
wished or expected that it would ever break out into actual war. 
In the fulness of their faith in the dependence of England on 
the commerce of the United States, and in the sufficiency of its 



238 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

prohibition to bring her to their own terms, they had relied on 
the Embargo and Non-Intercourse as the only weapons of their 
warfare. Their notions of republican economy had resisted 
every attempt to increase the military and naval ,-tiength of the 
country, which they did not seem to imagine could ever be 
plunged into war through the operation of their philosophy of 
peaceable iiostilities. Sagaciuus and experienced statesmen as 
they were, they appear to have overlooked the truth of which 
history is full, that wars and fightings come of the passions rather 
than the interests of men, who are often found willing to en- 
counter deadly odds themselves in the hope of doing an enemy a 
deadly mischief. Though the Administration policy of compel- 
ling justice from England, by the destruction of our own com- 
merce, had commanded working majorities in Congress up to this 
time, there had been all along a violent war party, consisting 
partly of honest enthusiasts, — haters of England and lovers of 
France, — and partly of adventurers who had nothing to lose, 
and who might gain something by the changes and chances inci- 
dent to a state of war. The passions and hopes of both these 
sorts of men were stimulated to the height by the more violent 
of the Democratic newspapers, most of them conducted by rene- 
gade Englishmen or refugee Irishmen. Of course, there had 
always been, underlying the policy of the redress of our injuries 
by the ruin of our commerce, an implied threat that, in case this 
did not succeed, a sharper warfare with other weapons would re- 
place it. The restrictive system had signally and ridiculously 
failed. The time for open war had logically arrived, and its 
advocates, in and out of Congress, had the best of the argument, 
reasoning from the premises of the Administration itself. 

The position of the Federalists in Congress was one of some 
delicacy and difficulty. It was well known that Mr. Madison was 
utterly opposed to any war with England, excepting one of com- 
mercial restrictions ; but it was also evident that the section of 
his party bent upon an open rupture was very strong in numbers, 
and yet stronger in talent. For, besides Mr. Clay, there was 
]Mr. Calhoun, who then appeared for the first time upon the scene 
where he was to take for forty years so conspicuous a part, and 



FEDERAL PERPLEXITIES. 239 

Langdon Cheves,* and William Lowndes,! all of them from 
South Carolina, and all able advocates of the policy of war. 
They were young, well educated, knowing what they wanted, and 
determined to carry tlieir point with all the resolute assurance and 
impatience of control which the habits of slave-mastership natu- 
rally inspired. The question which the Federalists had to decide 
was whether they should assist in preparing for war, in case of 
hostilities, or resist all propositions for putting the country in a 
state of defence. There was a division of opinion on this point 
in the little Federal minority in Congress, which reflected one 
existing in yet greater force among their constituents at home. 
Apprehensions that any help given by Federal members of Con- 
gress to the Administration, in the direction of preparing for war, 
might hasten war itself, prevailed very strongly in the commer- 
cial cities, and especially in Boston. As my father wrote to my 
mother on this point at the time : — 

" So unnerving has this apprehension of war with England become, 
that some Federalists seem almost to have forgotten their political 
character and principles. A navy, once their boast and hope, begins 
to be feared, or hated, because it is thought Administration intend 
to use it against Great Britain. For the same reason, the arming of 
our merchantmen is looked at with suspicion, and at the same time 
that we clamor against Administration for protecting us, as they call 
it, by commercial restrictions, we are not willing to accept from them 
anything else. The consequence has been, that the Administration has 
had full leisure to fix upon commerce shackles in what form they will ; 
and men of the most generous principles, and true lovers of their 
country, have become hated for British affinities, and for their willing- 
ness, according to the false maledictions of their enemies, to abandon 
to that nation every right, without struggle or preparation. I need not 
expose to you the falsehood and fallacy of these allegations." 

* Langdon Cheves, born, 1776; Member of Congress, 1811-1816; -was 
Speaker for one session ; for a time President of the United States Bank : 
died, 1857. 

+ William J. Lowndes, born, 1782; Member of Congress, 1811-1822. He died 
at sea on his way to England in 1822. He was a man of great talents and 
remarkable eloquence and power as a debater. Thus he was cut off' at forty 
in the midst of a career which it was believed might have couauciea umx to 
the very highest station in the country. 



240 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUmCY. 

His own course was guided solely by his views of duty to the 
nation, and was not at all aflfeeted by the strong disapprobatioa 
which it excited in the minds of some of the most prominent 
Federalists at home. He held that " a war with any nation 
under heaven, Great Britain not excepted, was a less evil than the 
perpetuation of the Anti-Commercial System " ; and that, while 
the opponents of a war with England should denounce it as un- 
necessary and wicked, they should not withhold their vote for 
making the necessary preparations for it, should it be forced upon 
the country. Accordingly, on the 16th of December, 1811, he 
voted for the augmentation of the Federal army ; to give the 
President authority to accept the services of volunteers, not to 
exceed fifty thousand in number, to order out detachments of the 
militia, and to put into commission all the vessels belonging to 
the navy worth repairing. 

While ray father's course in this particular was regarded with 
displeasure by some of his warmest party friends, he seems to 
have received a measure of applause from his political enemies 
which he neither expected nor desired. Writing to my mother, 
he says : — 

" I dined yesterday at Livingston's,* in company with Gouverneur 
Morris, De Witt Clinton, Fulton, Bayard, &c. De Witt Clinton told 
me that the Boston Chronicle had some paragraphs, I know not what, 
complimentary to me. This I take to be a master stroke of policy, and 
probably will double the dissatisfaction and discontent of those who 
have no higher notion of what is right than the principle that what 
such malignants commend must be bad. For myself, I am as little 
moved by the praise of my enemies, as by the suspicions, if such exist, 
of my friends. In a very complicated case I have chosen to judge 
for myself, and nothing has occurred to shake my confidence in my 
judgment. 

" On the vote for twenty-five thousand men (regular troops), there 
were but six Federalists with me. Yet these were a host in themselves, 
— Bleecker, Gold, Emott, Sullivan, Reed,f Livingston, — all of them 

* Robert LeRoy Livingston, of New York; Member of Congress from 1809 
to 1812. Fulton was the great man to whom the world is indebted for tho 
steamboat. 

t Thomas R. Gold graduated at Yale College in 1786; Member of Congress 
from 1809 to 1813, and 1815 to 1817; died, 1826. George Sullivan was my 



OFFENDS A PORTION OF THE FEDERALISTS. 241 

men of talents. Others would have been glad to give the same vote, 
liad they not feared for their popularity in their districts. All agree in 
the importance of permitting the party characters to disappeai'. In 

the Senate, Lloyd, Horsey,* Bayard, are all with me 

" Federalists, in abandoning the doctrines of Washington, of efficient 
protection, have lost their discriminative character, and, in their fears 
about the event of the European contests, their national character. 
Instead of a patriotic opposition to an oppressive government, they 
are in great danger of degenerating into a mere faction, ready to 
quarrel with anything which may endanger, or adopt anything which 
will promote, party success." 

It will appear from the following passage of a letter from Mr. 
Harrison Gray Otis, who had strongly supported Mr. Quincy's 
views and conduct just narrated, that the opinions of those of 
his political friends which had been the most adverse to him soon 
began to undergo a wholesome change. It is a peep into the 
family history of the Boston Federalists, which, like family his- 
tories getu'rally, seems not to have been entirely free from family- 
jars. These domestic discrepancies, however, appear to have 
been in a fair way to be healed. Chief Justice Parsons and Mr. 
John Lowell were among the warmest opposers of any action on 
the part of the Federalists in Congress that looked like assistance 
or encouragement to a war with England. 

"Your letters are constantly burnt the hour sA farthest after they are 
received, and I do not even hint at any portion of their contents until 
I find such portion the subject of general conversation. I treat them 
as I should love-letters, ■except that instead of sighs they elicit groans. 
There is a general acquiescence, and I may say approbation, of the 
course pursued by you in Congress. Mr. L., I hear, says there is no 
difference of opinion now among the Federalists. The Chief Justice, 
in a conversation which I sought for the express purpose of an argu- 
ment^ agreed with me in all points, except that one short speech show- 
father's classmate; he was a son of General John Sullivan of the Revolution, 
and nephew of Governor James Sullivan of Massachusetts; Member of Con- 
gress from 1811 to 1812; he was a distinguished lawyer, and long Attorney-Gen- 
eral of New Hampshire; he died, 1838. William Reed, of Marbiehead, was a 
wealthy merchant, who was prominently connected with religious and benevo- 
lent movements; Member of Congress from 1811 to 1815; died, 1837. 

* Outerbridge Horsey, born, 1777; an eminent lawyer; long Attorney-Gen- 
eral of Delaware; Senator from 1810 to 1821; died, 1842. 

11 P 



242 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

in<r llmt you diil not vote upon the principle of giving sanction to war 
would have been grateful to him. There is not one of these sworn 
brothers who is, or ever was, a politician, or who ever had what old 
John Adams calls the tact of the feelings and passions of mankind ; but 
they are men of probity, of talent, of influence, and the Federal party 
may say of them, Non possum vivere sine te nee cum te! " 

On the 25th of January, 1812, Mr. Qiiincy made his speech 
on Maritime Protection. Notwithritaiiding the chronic enmity of 
the slaveholding States to a navy, the common sense of the abler 
Southern members of the war party in Congress perceived the 
absolute necessity of some naval preparation for the conflict with 
England which they were determined to bring about. It was 
at the suggestion of some of these members, and especially of 
Mr. Calhoun, that Mr. Quincy made this speech. He said he 
was apprehensive that arguments from that side of the House 
might be received with so natural a jealousy that more would 
be lost than gained by them ; but the debate had been conducted 
on so liberal a scale, and his own State had so deep an interest in 
the question, that "he could not permit the opportunity to pass 
without bringing his small tribute of reflection into the common 
stock." He then went on to show the necessity of a navy for 
the protection of commerce, the importance of commerce to the 
whole country, and the amount of values exposed to destruction 
from the smallest squadron, or even from a single ship of war, in 
the present unprotected condition of the coast. I will give a f*iv: 
extracts from the body of the speech, and the chief of its peroration. 

" If this commerce were the mushroom growth of a night, if it had 
its vigor from the temporary excitement and the accumulated nutri- 
ment which warring elements in Europe had swept from the places 
of their natural deposit, then, indeed, there might be some excuse for 
a temporizing policy touching so transitory an interest. But com- 
merce in the Eastern States is of no foreign growth, and of no ad- 
ventitious seed. Its root is of a fibre which almost two centuries have 
nourished ; and the perpetuity of its destiny is written in legible 
characters as well in the nature of the country as in the dispositions 
of its inhabitants. Indeed, Sir, look along your whole coast, from 
Passamaquoddy to Capes Henry and Charles, and behold the deep and 
far-windino- creeks and inlets, the noble basins, the projecting head- 



SPEECH ON MARITIME PROTECTION. 2 '43 

lauds, the majestic rivers, and tliose sounds and bays wliicli arc, more 
like inland seas than like anything called by those names in other 
quarters of the globe. Can any man do this and not realize that the 
destiny of the people inhabiting such a country is essentially mari- 
time ? Can any man do tliis without being impressed by the convic- 
tion that, although the poor projects of politicians may embarrass, 
for a time, the dispositions growing out of the condition of such a 
country, yet that Nature Avill be too strong for cobweb regulations, 
and will vindicate her rights with certain efifect, — perhaps with awful 
perils ? No nation ever did or ever ought to resist such allurements 
and invitations to a particular mode of industry. The purposes of 
Providence relative to the destination of men ai'e to be gathered from 
the circumstances in whicli His beneficence has placed them. And to 
refuse to make use of the means of prosperity which His goodness has 
put into our hands, what is it but spurning at His bounty, and reject- 
ing the blessings which His infinite wisdom has designated for us by the 
very nature of His allotments ? The employments of industry con- 
nected with navigation and commercial enterprise are precious to the 
people of that quarter of the country by ancient prejudice, not less 
than by recent profit. The occupation is rendered dear and vener- 
able by all the cherished associations of our infancy, and all the sage 
and prudential maxims of our ancestors. And as to the lessons of 
encouragement derived from recent experience, what nation ever 
within a similar period received so many that were sweet and saluta- 
ry ? What nation in so short a time ever before ascended to such a 
height of commercial greatness ? 

" It has been said by some philosopliers o£ the other hemisphere, 
that Nature in this New World had worked by a sublime scale ; that 
our mountains and rivers and lakes were beyond all comparison 
greater than anything the Old World could boast ; that she had here 
made nothing diminutive — p:xcept its animals. And ought we not 
to fear lest the bitterness of this sarcasm should be concentrated on 
our country by a course of policy wholly unworthy of tlie magnitude 
and nature of the interests committed to our guardianship? Have 
we not reason to fear that some future cynic, with an asperity which 
truth shall make piercing, will declare, that aU things in these United 
States are great — except its statesmen? and that we are pyg- 
mies to whom Providence has intrusted, for some inscrutable purpose, 
gigantic labors ? Can we deny tlie justice of such severity of remark, 
if, instead of adopting a scale of thought and a standard of action pro- 
portionate to the greatness of our trust and the multiplied necessities 



244 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

of the people, we bring to our task the mere measures of professional 
industry, and mete out contributions for national safety by our fee- 
tables, our yard-sticks, and our gill-pots ? Can we refrain from sub- 
scribing to the truth of such censure, if we do not rise in some degree 
to the height of our obhgations, and teach ourselves to conceive, and 
with the peophi to realize, the vastness of those relations which are 
daily springing among States which are not so much one empire as a 
congregation of empires ? 

" While I am on this point, I cannot refrain from noticing a strange 
solecism which seems to prevail touching the term flag. It is talked 
about as though there was something mystical In its very nature, — as 
though a rag with certain stripes and stars upon It tied to a stick, and 
called a flag, was a wizai-d wand, and entailed security on everything 
under It or within its sphere. There is nothing like all this in the na- 
ture of the thing. A flag is the evidence of power. A land flag is 
the evidence of land power. A maritime flag Is the evidence of mari- 
time power. You may have a piece of bunting upon a staff, and 
call it a flag, but if you have no maritime power to maintain it, you 
have a name, and no reality ; you have the shadow without the sub- 
stance; you have the sign of a flag, but in truth you have no flag. 

" Mr. Speaker, can any one contemplate the exigency which at this 
day depresses our country, and for one moment deem it exceptional ? 
The degree of such commercial exigencies may vary, but they must 
always exist. It Is absurd to suppose that such a population as is that 
of the Atlantic States can be either driven or deco}ed from the 
ocean. It is just as absurd to Imagine that wealth will not invite 
cupidity, and that weakness will not insure both insult and plunder. 
The circumstances of our age make this truth signally impressive. 
Who does not see In the conduct of Europe a general departure from 
those common principles which once constituted national morality ? 
What is safe which power can seize or ingenuity can circumvent ? 
or what truths more palpable than these, — that there is no safety for 
national rights but in the national arm, and that important interests 
systematically piu^ued must be systematically protected ? 

" Touching that branch of interest which is most precious to com- 
mercial men, it is impossible that there can be any mistake. For, 
however dear the Interests of property or of life exposed upon the 
ocean may be to their owners or their friends, yet the safety of our 



SPEECH ON MARITIME PROTECTION. 245 

altars and of our firesides, of our cities and of our seaboard, naust, from 
the nature of things, be entwined with the affections by ties incom- 
parably more strong and tender. And it happens that both national 
pride and honor are peculiarly identified with the support of these 
primary objects of commercial interest. 

" It is in this view I state that the first and most important object 
of the nation ought to be such a naval force as shall give such a de- 
gree of rational security as the nature of the subject admits to our 
cities and seaboard and coasting trade ; that tlie system of maritime 
protection ought to rest upon this basis ; and that It should not at- 
tempt to go farther until these objects are secured. And I have no 
hesitation to declare that, until such a maritime force be systematically 
maintained by this nation, it shamefully neglects its most important 
duties and most critical interests. 

"But it is inquired, ' What effect will this policy have upon the pres- 
ent exigency V ' I answer, the happiest In every aspect. To exhibit 
a definitive intent to maintain maritime rights by maritime means, 
what Is it but to develop new stamina of national character ? No na- 
tion can have or has a right to hope for respect from others which does 
not first learn to respect itself. And how is this to be attained ? By a 
course of conduct conformable to its duties, and relative to its condi- 
tion. If it abandons what It ought to defend, if it flies from the field 
it is bound to maintain, how can it hope for honor? To what other 
inheritance is it entitled but disgi-ace ? Foreign nations undoubtedly 
look upon this Union with eyes long read in the history of man, and 
with thoughts deeply versed in the effects of passion and interest 
upon independent States, associated by ties so apparently slight and 
novel. They understand well that the rivalries among the great inter- 
ests of su(rh States, — the natural envyings which in all countries spring 
up between agriculture, commerce, and manufactui-es, — the Inevitable 
jealousies and fears of each other of South and North, interior and 
seaboard, — the incipient or progressive rancor of party animosity, — 
are the essential weaknesses of sovereignties thus combined. Whether 
these causes shall operate, or whether they shall cease, foreign nations 
will gather from the features of our policy. They cannot believe that 
such a nation is strong in the affections of its associated parts, when 
they see the vital interests of whole States abandoned. But reverse 
this policy ; show a definitive and stable intent to yield the natural 
protection to such essential interests ; then they will respect you. 
And to powerful nations honor comes attended by safety. 



'/ 



246 LIFE OP JOSIAH QUINCY. 

"Mr. Speaker, what is national disgrace? Of what stuff is it 
composed ? Is a nation disgraced because its flag is insulted, — be- 
cause its seamen are impressed, — because its course upon the high- 
way of the ocean is obstructed ? No, Sir. Abstractly considered, 
aU this is not disgrace. Because all this may happen to a nation so 
weak as not to be able to maintain the dignity of its flag, or the free- 
dom of its citizens, or the safety of its couree. Natural weakness is 
never disgrace. But, Sir, this is disgrace, — when we submit to insult 
and to injury which we have the power to prevent or redress. Its 
essential constituents are want of sense or want of spirit. When a 
nation with ample means for its defence is so thick in the brain as not , 
to put them into a suitable state of preparation ; or when, with sufii 
cient muscular force, it is so tame in spirit as to seek safety, not i 
manly effort, but in retirement ; — then a nation is disgraced ; then \i 
shrinks from its high and sovereign character into that of the tribe of 
Issachar, crouching down between two burdens, — the French burden 
on the one side, and the British on the other, — so duU, so lifeless, so 
stupid, that, were it not for its braying, it could not be distinguished 
from the clod of the valley. 

" The general effect of the policy I advocate is to produce confi- 
dence at home, and respect abroad. These are twin shoots from 
the same stock, and never fail to flourish or fade together. Con- 
fidence is a plant of no mushroom growth and of no artificial texture. 
It springs only from sage counsels and generous endeavors. The pro- 
tection you extend must be efiicient, and suited to the nature of the 
object you profess to maintain. If it be neither adequate nor appro- 
priate, your wisdom will be doubted, your motives will be distrusted, 
and in vain you will expect confidence. The inhabitants of the sea- 
board will inquire of their own senses, and not of your logic, concern- 
ing the reality of their protection. 

" As to respect abroad, what course can be more certain to insure 
it? What object more honorable, what more dignified, than to behold 
a great nation pursuing wise ends by appropriate means, — rising to 
adopt a series of systematic exertions suited to her poAver, and ade- 
quate to her purposes ? What object more consolatory to the friends, 
what more paralyzing to the enemies, of our Union, than to behold the 
natural jealousies and rivalries which are the acknowledged dangers 
of our political condition subsiding or sacrificing ? What sight more 
exhilarating than to see this great nation once more walking forth 
among tlie nations of the earth under the protection of no foreign 



SPEECH ON MARITBIE PROTECTION. 247 

shield ? Peaceful, because powerful. Powerful, because united in 
interests and amalgamated by concentration of those interests in the 
national affections. 

" But let the opposite policy prevail ; let the essential interests of 
the great component parts of this Union find no protection under the 
national arm ; instead of safety let them realize oppression, — and the 
seeds of discord and dissolution are inevitably sown in a soil the best 
fitted for their root, and affording the richest nourishment for their 
expansion. It may be a long time before they ripen. But sooner or 
later they will assuredly burst forth in all their destructive energies. 
In the intermediate period, what aspect does a union thus destitute of 
^cement present ? Is it that of a nation keen to discern, and strong to 
rfesist, violations of its sovereignty ? It has rather the appearance of a 
casual collection of semi-barbarous clans, with the forms of civiliza- 
tion and with the rude and rending passions of the savage state. In 
truth, powerful, yet, as to any foreign effect, imbecile. Rich in the 
goods of fortune, yet wanting that inherent spirit without which a na- 
tion is poor indeed; their strength exhausted by struggles for local 
power ; their moral sense debased by low intrigues for personal popu- 
larity or temporary pre-eminence ; all their thoughts turned, not to 
the safety of the state, but to the elevation of a chieftain. A people 
presenting such an aspect, — what have they to expect abroad ? 
What but pillage, insult, and scorn ? 

" The choice is before us. Persist in refusing efficient maritime pro- 
tection; persist in the system of commercial restrictions; what now 
is perhaps anticipation will hereafter be history." 

This speech had the felicity, rare enough in my father's case, 
of meeting with the approbation of both sides of the House. 
The Federalists throughout the country generally applauded it, 
though not without important exceptions, as we shall presently 
see. In a letter to my mother he thus speaks of its effect : — 

" The result as respects my own gratification has been beyond any- 
thing I ever before experienced. Friends and foes, lovers and haters 
of the navy, have expressed themselves in terms which I do not choose 
to repeat even to you, because I know they are not entirely deserved." 

He also had the gratification of receiving the following letter 
from Ex-President Adams, written, as he himself says of it, 
*' in a spirit alike friendly, unequivocal, and characteristic." 



248 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

The speech was entirely in accordance with the well-known 
opinions of Mi\ Adams as to the importance of a naval estab- 
lishment. 

Mr. Adams to Mr. Quincy, 

" Quincy, February 21, 1812. 
" Mr. Quincy : — I thank you for your speech in relation to mari- 
time protection, and much more for making it. It is the speech of a 
man, a citizen, and a statesman. It is neither hyperbole nor flattery 
in me to say, it is the most important speech ever uttered in that House 
since 1 789. I care not a farthing whom I offend by this declaration. 
But I am puzzled and confounded to see that not one member from 
New England has been found to second or support you. It is not less 
surprising that not a member from the two vast States of New York 
and Pennsylvania has said a word to assist you. I could give a spe- 
cious account of this, from motives the meanest, and basest, and most 
disgraceful to human nature; but none at all from any manlv, gener- 
ous, and natural source, and therefore I will not attempt any solution 
of the theorem. Again I say, I thank you. 

"John Adams." 

A slip of paper is wafered to this letter, on which is written 
the following words from the Sixth Epistle of Horace : " Pisce- 
mur, venemur, ut olim"; — the precise application of which I do 
not perceive, unless it be aimed as a sarcasm at the men who 
would prefer their own selfish gratifications to the honor and 
safety of their country. 

My father had also many other most cordial expressions of ap- 
proval from prominent Federalists. In his own words, " I was 
supported in the most gratifying language by men whose praise 
is worthy of being preserved." On the 17th of February Robert 
Walsh wrote to him : — 

" I am in raptures with your speech on the navy bill. It is truly the 
work of a philosophical and clear-minded politician." 

On the 24th of February Harrison Gray Otis wrote : — 

" The speech on the navy is worthy of being read in all the churches. 
I think it is the best and most popular view of that great question that 
has ever appeared, and am confident it will be regarded in more aus- 
picious times as an elementary treatise upon the sectional relations 



SPEECH ON MARITIME PROTECTION. 249 

and interests of our country, as well as a lucid exposition of the fitness 
and necessity and means of adjusting them by the instrumentalities of 
a navy. Some of our lounging cavillers (not cavaliers) dispute the 
accuracy of the calculations, especially those furnished by Reed. But 
I silence their nonsense by referring them to the principles and argu- 
ments contained in the speech, and answering them, that all the errors, 
if proved, do not vary the result. We shall endeavor to give it a very 
extensive circulation." 

Christopher Gore wrote, on the 26th of February : — 

" I am very grateful for your speech in favor of a navy. If reason 
and argument had weight in Congress, such a discourse could not 
have failed to produce some effect on the votes of that body. If the 
commercial part of the community were not contemned by our South- 
ern lords more than their black slaves, some attention would be paid 
by government to the interests of navigation. But as an oppressed and 
injured people, it seems we must remain a prey to the malignant envy 
of our associates of the South, and to the baseness and folly of many of 
those who affect to represent the interests of New England, which they 
have not wisdom to discern, or are willing to betray for a little tem- 
porary superiority over men whose fame they hate, and whose honor- 
able elevation they can never hope to attain." 

Of the immediate occasion of this speech, and of the secret 
disapproval which it caused among a most influential portion of 
his constituents and personal friends, my father has left this 
record : — 

" The strong desire of these South Carolina politicians to favor a 
navy made them express to me a wish that I would present the view 
of the Eastern States on that subject, which induced me to make that 
exertion which otherwise I should not have done. For the predomi- 
nating feeling in the mercantile class was at this moment hostile to 
every form of warlike preparation, which they persuaded themselves 
would be applied, not to their defence, but to provoke further hostilities 
with Great Britain, and in support of the views of the French Emperor. 
Accordingly, although, as I have said, that effort was publicly applauded 
by men of all parties, it was far from being acceptable to the leading 
mercantile interests, so deep were prejudices, and so nervous were they 
through fear." 

11* 



250 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 



CHAPTER XI. 

1812. 

The Johx Henry Scandal. — Course of Boston Federalists touch- 
ing IT. — The War Democrats. — Clay and Calhoun. — The Sixty 
Days' Embargo. — Despatch of the News to Boston. — Its Effect, 
Mercantile and Political. — The War Democrats prevail over 
Mr. Madison. — War with England is declared. — Mr. Quincy de- 
clines A Re-election. — His Reasons for it. — Effect of the War 
on New England. — Apprehensions at Quincy. — The Constitution 
and GuERuiicRE. — Hull and Decatur — Meeting of John Adams 
AND Timothy Pickering at Quincy. — John Randolph and his 
Nephew. — His Letters to Mk. Quincy. 

EAE.LY in the spring of 1812 the curious historical episode 
of the John Henry scandal occurred. Tliough it is pretty 
well known to the readers of the history of those times, I will 
here give my father's account of it, which is the more lively, per- 
haps, from his having been himself one of the persons whose 
hospitality had been abused by that adventurei*. 

"On the 9th of March, 1812, a message from President Madison 
opened to Congress and the public a mean and base transaction, in 
■which the secret service fund of the United States Treasury was ap- 
plied solely to circulate, for electioneering purposes, party aspersions 
and suspicions against the highest and most honorable men in the 
Eastern States, and as fuel to the most malignant party passions. 
From the year 1809 to 1812, there had been residing in those States 
a man, John Henry by name. He had married a lady of good family 
in Philadelphia, and with her and two children came to Boston, osten- 
sibly for health and amusement, bringing letters of introduction to 
many families in the place, — among others to mine. He was received 
with the attention due to the respectability of the letters he brought, 
and regarded as a man passing idly through the world, seeking and 
entitled to no special interest or confidence. He flitted about New 
England, — sometimes at Windsor, and sometimes at Burlington, in 
Vermont, — but chiefly resided in Boston. His manners being gentle- 



THE JOHN HENRY SCANDAL. 251 

manly and his letters of introduction good, he was admitted freely into 
society, and heard the conversation at private tables, but without any 
reference to him. 

" During all this time, as it afterwards appeared, he was a spy, 
authorized by Sir James Craig, Governor of the British Provinces in 
North America, to travel in the Eastern States, to gain and commu- 
nicate such knowledge as he could of the state of aflFairs and of the 
opinions of men, with authority also, if he found any parties or per- 
sons of leading influence in those States willing to enter into any 
political connection with the British government, to receive and com- 
municate such disposition to him, for which purpose he received cre- 
dentials of his authority in this respect, which in such case he was at 
liberty to produce. For these services he was paid, and was to receive 
such pecuniary aid as he might require. After having been three 
years in this agency, having collected nothing but what every news- 
paper in the country could communicate, having done nothing, and 
not having, or pretending to have, found a single individual in the 
United States, of any section or party, disposed to have any political 
connection with Great Britain, to whom he could exhibit his secret 
credentials, he laid before the British government exorbitant claims 
for services, which they instantly rejected. Excessively indignant at 
this treatment, he resolved to turn traitor to his government, and 
opened a negotiation with Madison for the sale of his papers. And 
although they contained not a word implicating any individual, or any 
party, nor one important fact, except that the British government had 
employed a spy in the United States for the purpose of being informed 
of the actual position of affairs within them, yet Madison, availino- 
himself of the power intrusted to him as President over the secret 
service fund, paid this fellow for his papers fifty thousand dollars out 
of the public treasury ! 

"In communicating this purchase, Madison had the. art and audaci- 
ty to declare that this secret agent had been employed in the Eastern 
States in fomenting disaffection, and in intrigues with the disaffected 
to bring about resistance to the laws and a political connection with 
Great Britain, when not an individual was ever intimated as being 
concerned with Henry, or the slightest evidence adduced of any in- 
trigue with him by any person or party. To such arts could a man 
placed at the head of the nation condescend, to give food to party 
malice, and to increase the chances of his re-election, then depending, 
to the Presidency of the United States ! The negotiation was made, 
and the money paid in Washington early in the month of February. 



252 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

But to conceal the operation, and, if possible, the fact that the papers 
had been paid for by the President, Henry left Washington, and wrote 
a letter from Philadelphia, dated the 20th of February (ten or twenty 
days after the terms of purchase had been settled and the money paid), 
in which he apparently made a self-moved and disinterested statement 
of the patriotic motives which had induced him ' herewith to transmit the 
public documents in his possession,' and that this had been done volun- 
tarily out of regard to the United States. It afterwards appeared tliat 
these documents, so far from having been transmitted from Philadelphia 
on the 20th of February, were in fact then in the hands of Madison, and 
that, in accordance with proceedings projected at Washington, these 
falsehoods were written from Philadelphia to conceal the nature of 
the transaction, that Henry might escape from the country before it 
should be publicly known in the United States. Accordingly, before 
its appearance Henry was on his voyage to France on board the sloop- 
of-war Wasp, sent to carry despatches to Europe. History has few 
transactions to record more disgraceful to a government than this, 
considering its nature, its objects, the manner in which it was con- 
ducted, and the means taken to conceal it from public view. 

" Some of the influential leaders of the Federal party were so in- 
fatuated in their belief of the character of British dijalomacy, that they 
at first discredited altogether Craig's letter to Henry, — pronounced 
it a forgery, and that it was utterly incredible a British Governor 
should have been engaged in employing a spy in the Eastern States 
for any such purpose as this letter indicated. By this confidence in 
British purity, they at first weakened the efiect of these disclosures, 
and confirmed in public opinion their devotedness to the British 
nation. Their course of proceeding in relation to these disclosures 
concurring with their condemning my course in voting for prepa- 
ration for war, maintaining that by such vote I was committed to 
vote for war, and thereby condemning me for not yielding my sense 
of public duty to their fears, effectually disgusted me." 

It was in this state of feeling that he wrote to his wife as fol- 
lows, March 20, 1812: — 

" My anxiety to get home is intense ; yet it seems my duty to stay 
and watch tills sleeping ^tna, although it will probably do nothing 
but smoulder ; and if it burn, I can interpose no resistance to stay its 
fury. This session has given me a quietus with Congress. They may 
send me on a mission to Kamschatka rather than here. As to the 
Federalists, I have preached and practised In oi'der to Impress on them 



THE JOHN HENRY SCANDAL, 253 

their political duty. If they justify Great Britain, or take violently, or 
further than by way of suggestion, the ground that ''"lenry's disclosures 
are forgeries, they are fools, and the party is not worth the saving. 
Administration may spread fifty traps in broad day, and they will 
walk deliberately into them. There is but one high, generous, noble 
ground. Take the documents for granted. Show an indignant sense 
of injury at the attempt, and turn the indignation of the country 
against Madison for the base insinuation contained in his Message, — 
so diifcrent from what the tenor of Henry's papers justifies, — and for 
the notorious intrigue and waste of public moneys." 

On the 22d of March he again wrote on the same subject: — 

" I find that the doctrine that Henry's papers are forgeries is the 
favorite one with the Federalists, and it is just the ground Administra- 
tion wishes them to take. I have, however, little doubt that Sir James 
Craig's letter was genuine, — whether previously sanctioned in Eng- 
land I cannot say. But it ought to be viewed with peculiar disgust 
by the Federal party, to whom it was both an insult and an injury. 
I find this sentiment is little felt, and less expressed. Men are so run 
away with by the apprehension of a British war, and with the belief 
that It is the intention of our government to get us into one, that they 
forget what is due to their own character as a party. I shall be 
thought a trimmer by all the violents. My fate is odd. By some I 
am tliought such a raving Federalist as to be shrewdly suspected of 
being one of Henry's confidants ; by others that I am so strongly hos- 
tile to the British that I am in danger of turning Democrat. The 
truth is, that there is an intermediate ground for an American poli- 
tician to stand upon. That I seek, and when I think I have found it 
I shall not hesitate to defend it, let who will shake or wonder, con- 
demn or applaud." 

In another letter, dated March 26th, he says : — 

" Your feelings toward Madison and his party are very natural, but 
their conduct is precisely such as all history leads us to expect, in pop- 
ular governments, from ambitious leaders. All governments are but 
a choice among evils, and with all the struggles to which our form sub- 
jects us, and all the apparent intrigues to which it exposes us, I am 
far from being certain that as much happiness is not to be enjoyed 
under it as under any other which could be induced. As to knaves 
and fools being our governors, under what form of government are 
they not powerful ? Either one or the other of that species presides at 



254 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

present over even nation in Europe. AVhy should we repine at a 
common destiny ?' As to my views on (he prospect before un, if they 
seem discouraging in your view, that is perhaps the result of the in- 
stant effect, rather than of the permanent operation of the measures, or 
rather the no measures, here progressing. The state of things may be 
wholesome. It may be about to grow rough and tempestuous Aveather. 
I confess it appears hazy. But there are landmarks enough to steer 
by. The shore is bold, and I see no great danger of shipwreck. We 
shall have enough ' tossing about,' but that keeps the faculties in jiUiy 
My opinion has always been, that we should get relief, but throiigli 
suffering. I hope that what the people of Massachusetts have ah-eady 
felt will make them wise enough to produce at the elections a salutary 
change. If it does not, they must go to school again. Tliis is the way 
prescribed by Providence for human instruction, and I quarrel not 
with its institutions, but endeavor to teach myself to understand, and 
to conform my life to an admiration of, and acquiescence in, its sys- 
tem. As to the British, there is a foolish leaning upon them among 
some of our friends, which, at the same time that it does little 
credit to their patriotism, does infinitely less to their judgment. 
The truth is, the British look upon us as a foreign nation, and we 
must look upon them in the same light. They are willing to make us 
the tools of their policy, and Ave ought not to attribute to them higher 
motiA^es than those Avhich really actuate them." 

On the 27th of March he again Avrote : — 

" I do not feel tlie despondence you seem to imagine from my last 
letter. It is, perhaps, because I look upon life differently from most 
men, who deem the gi-eat objects of it to be peace and security. 
I believe this scene of things to be destined for exertions and duties. 
Circumstances may make the first rigorous and the hitter critical. It 
is very little Avithin our poAver to select either the theatre or tlie time 
of action. But the great object in which the mind ought to be ab- 
sorbed, and on which our felicity should be made dependent, is a 
thorough performance of duty, and a vigorous exertion of our facul- 
ties, according to the nature of the stage, and of the period which a 
higher than human poAver has provided for us." 

All this time the country was drifting rapidly into a Avar Avith 
England. The war of commercial restrictions having failed to 
bring that hanglit}' poAver to terms, the alternative of silent sub- 
mission or an appeal to the last argument of kings and nations 



THE WAR DEMOCRATS. 255 

was more and more forced upon men's minds. The faith of Mr. 
Madison in the compulsory power of Embargos and Acts of Non- 
Intercourse was not yet shaken, and there was no man in the 
nation that shrunk from a resort to arms more nervously than 
he. But the spirit of hatred to England which Jefferson had 
evoked, and he himself had conjured with, was grown too strong 
for Mr. Madison to exorcise or to control. As a last resort he 
induced Mr. Pinkney of Maryland, late Minister to England, and 
one of the ablest men the country ever produced, to use his 
influence with the merchants in the different commercial cities 
to write to their correspondents in England, and ask them to 
endeavor to persuade the British Ministry to modify the Orders 
in Council sufficiently to make it possible for the United States 
to withdraw from their unpleasant position with some show of 
grace. He succeeded in drawing after him some of the Federal 
merchants even of Boston, by acting skilfully on their hopes and 
fears. But it was all in vain. The P^nglish Ministry were as 
fast anchored as their isle, and would make neither concessions 
nor advances. All this strengthened the war party in Congress. 
Of this party Henry Clay was the guiding spirit. Of his char- 
acter and qualifications for this leadership my father speaks 
thus : — 

" Bold, aspiring, presumptuous, with a rough, overbearing eloquence, 
neither exact nor comprehensive, which he had cultivated and formed 
in the contests with the half-civilized wranglers in the county courts 
of Kentucky, and quickened into confidence and readiness by success- 
ful declamations at barbecues and electioneering strugj^les, he had 
not yet that polish of language and refinement of manners which he 
afterwards acquired by familiarity and attrition with highly cultivated 

men Such was the man whose influence and power more than 

that of any other produced the war of 1812 between the United 

States and Great Britain Absurd as an invasion of Canada in 

defence of our commercial rights would appear, yet, if war were once 
declared, the nation might be brought up to it, as we could do nothing 
else; and the measure would be highly beneficial to Kentucky and the 
Western States. Levies of men could easily be raised among their 
vigorous and active population, and army supplies would be a bounty 
upon beef, corn, flour, and their other products, — among them the 



256 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

chief expenditures of the war would be made. All this Clay foresaw, 
and, in the event, realized. The invasion of Canada advanced Ken- 
tucky and the Western States fifty years in prosperous progress." 

The war party, however, were willing to indulge Mr. Madison 
with one more trial of the effect of an Embargo for sixty days. 
This was the occasion of the following transaction, of which I 
will give my father's own account. 

" On the 31st of March, Mr. Calhoun, a member of the Committee 
on Foreign Relations, came to me voluntarily, and told nie that the Ad- 
ministration had determined to lay another Embargo, — that it would 
certainly be done, — and that it was the intention of the government 
that it should be made public. 1 asked him if I was authorized to 
communicate that intention to my constituents. He replied, certainly, 
that it was to that end he had mentioned it to me. I immediately 
sought an interview with Mr. Lloyd. We agreed the important in- 
formation ought to be instantl_y transmitted to the merchants of Bos- 
ton, and united in a letter to H. G. Otis and T. H. Perkins, with 
the intelligence Mr. Calhoun had given me. We contracted with a 
stage proprietor to deliver our despatch in Boston in seventy-six hours. 
This contract was fulfilled, and on Friday, the 4th of April, the intelli- 
gence reached Boston. The effect was electric, the excitement pro- 
duced never exceeded. On Saturday and Sunday the whole town 
was in motion, every truck and cart was in requisition, the streets and 
wharves were crowded by the merchants, anxious to send their ships 
to sea before the harbor was closed by the Embargo. The loading 
and sailing continued all Sunday. This news, coming on the eve 
of the April elections, was met first with disbelief, then with cal- 
umny. ' The duty assigned to me,' wrote VV^illiam Sullivan, ' was to 
swear, at caucus, that the letter you and Lloyd sent to Otis was 
neither a forgerj' nor an electioneering trick ; both which had been 
asserted concerning it.' The timeliness of this communication from 
Mr. Lloyd and myself was evident. Its importance to the interests of 
the merchants was apparent by the rapid and earnest use they made 
of it, and its favorable effect upon the State election was undeniable. 
It was one of the most responsible acts of my public life, taken on the 
information of a deliberate intention of the Administration, communi- 
cated to me voluntarily, not confidentially, by Mr. Calhoun, with ex- 
press authority from him to transmit it to my constituents, and done 
solely from a sense of public duty and regard for the interests of the 
merchants. Yet though it was thus used, generally approved, and 



THE SIXTY DAYS' EMBARGO. 257 

even lauded by most of my friends, it was far from being so by those 
who took the lead in the conduct of the Federal party. They at first 
sneered and disbelieved the statement, said that, as it respected the 
elections, the Federalists had lost more votes at the polls by sending 
away sailors who could vote, than were gained by the excitement pro- 
duced by the news, and treated very slightly the advantage gained by 
my letter. 

" Mrs. Quincy wrote to me on the 6th of April : ' Isaac P. Davis said 
to me, there were gentlemen in the party who made a practice of 
disapproving of everything the Federalists in Congress had done, from 
the beginning to the end ; that they were very few in number, but 
made up in violence what they wanted in strength.' Facts of this 
kind clinched my determination never again to engage in a service so 
arduous, so responsible, so thankless, so subject to be abused by one 
section of the party and only feebly supported by another, — divided 
by its interests, passions, affections, and principles." 

My father was deeply wounded by the manner in which his 
conscientious performance of his public duty and his faithful 
service of his party, subordinated only to the higher allegiance 
due to his country, had been requited by a portion of the leading 
Federalists. We have already seen how his displeasure at the 
conduct of these gentlemen in the Henry matter had helped to 
make up his mind to withdraw from Congress, and this fresh 
sense of personal injustice only strengthened that resolution. In 
a letter to his wife written about this time, he thus expresses his 
feelings and opinions as to the course of the leaders of his party, 
and repeats his determination not to return to Washington after 
the expiration of this term. 

" You and my other correspondents are my witnesses, that I have 
foreseen the renewal of the Embargo. Last November I wrote, ' If 
you mean to get rid of the restrictive system, you must be willing to 
wish, prefer, and even demand war,' or words to that effect. But I 
found I could not be supported by my friends. I have been obliged 
to content myself with a silent acquiescent course, instead of one 
open, stimulative, vigorous, such as was due to the crisis, to our coun- 
try, to our character and hopes as a party. From the friendship of 
Great Britain we have little to hope. Many Federalists by their be- 
Hef in it have been ruined. Fear of war with her paralyzes others. 
But you and the nation shall hear my voice. If my friends choose to 

Q 



258 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

be offended, I cannot help it. I do not mean to lie a member of Con- 
gi'ess after this term, being perfectly convinced that whatever weight 
my character and exertions can effect had better be applied in my na- 
tive State. I shall speak truth according to my own conception of it ; 
and if I do not convince or change public sentiment, I will not asso- 
ciate myself or my fate with the destinies of the weak, tlie timid, or 
the interested. 

" But I fear not. The great body of the American people, when 
Ihey understand the relations of things, will go with me; and if they 
do not in vote they will in heart, and sooner or later in vote also. If 
they do not, and are false to themselves, so be it : I will be true to my- 
self and my country. You will perceive that my heart is full, my 
head also, with a session of eleven hours, during one of which I was 
on my feet, uttering, I trust, piercing truths, which were felt deeply 
enough, though they produced no conviction. All this may appear 
vanity, but I have a right to offer to you the overflowing of a heart 
which, however engaged, whether light or serious, active or indolent, 
in strength or weakness, is always yours." 

Through this extraordinary despatch, the news of the impend- 
ing Embargo was in Boston before it was in Baltimore, a circum- 
stance not well pleasing to the merchants there. Mr. Calhoun 
was inclined to cavil at the rapidity with which his intelli- 
gence had been transmitted by Mr. Quincy to his constituents ; 
but as he could not deny that it was communicated for trans- 
mission, it was clear that he had no just ground of complaint. 
Mr. Quincy took an active part in the discussions on the passage 
of this Embargo in the secret sessions. What he did and said 
was of no effect within those closed doors, and of none outside 
of them, as the debates were not published for years afterwards. 

Towards the end of April my father obtained leave of absence 
from the House, and made a flying visit to Boston. On his re- 
turn his friend, the Rev. William Ellery Channing, accom- 
panied him, by his invitation, to Washington. The health of 
that celebrated man being infirm then, as it continued to be all 
his life long, it was hoped that this journey might be of use 
to him. He remained with my father as his guest for several 
days, but had no opportunity of gratifying his desire to attend 
the debates, as the House was in secret session during his whole 
stay. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND DECLARED. 259 

The war party in Congress was now in the ascendant, and all 
the resistance which the Democratic President and the Federal 
Opposition could offer to the measure was overborne by the 
reckless energy and determined purpose of Clay and Calhoun. 
My (ather gives the following account of the manner in which 
the reluctance of Mr. Madison was overcome, and he induced to 
take the responsibility of recommending a declaration of war 
against England. In those days, as may be seen in the conclud- 
ing extract of the speech on Place and Patronage, the candi- 
dates for the Presidency were agreed upon by the members of 
Congress of the respective parties, instead of being selected, as 
at present, by general conventions. 

" He was heart and soul a convert to Jefferson's pohcy, and held 
to the commercial restrictive system with the grasp of death. A 
war, he thought, would put an end to his hope of re-election to the 
Presidency, nor did he quit tliis grasp till waited upon by a commit- 
tee of which Henry Clay was the Chairman, and was plainly told 
that his being supported as the party candidate for the next Presi- 
dency depended upon his screwing his courage to a declaration of 
war. To this he reluctantly assented, but intimated his desire that it 
should, in the incipient stage, commence in the House of Representa- 
tives. But three or tour young men, who had recently become mem- 
bers of Congress, who, from want of experience were without personal 
weight, and were comparatively unknown to the nation, were unwill- 
ing to take the lead in such a measure; and Madison was told he 
must unequivocally assume himself the responsibility of recommend- 
ing war. To this condition he finally acceded, and, giving full satis- 
faction to these overbearing leaders, he received the nomination for 
the Presidency. On this combination of violence with individual in- 
terest and ambition was laid the foundation of the war of 1812 with 
Great Britain." 

In fulfilment of his part of the contract, Mr. Madison sent a 
confidential Message, recommending a Declaration of War, on 
the 1st of June, 1812, and a bill was passed to that effect by the 
House on the 4th, by a vote of 79 to 49. It took about a fort- 
night longer to procure the sanction of the Senate, but this was 
obtained on the 18th, — nineteen Senators voting for the war, 
and thirteen against it. Mr. Madison made haste to sign the 



260 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

bill, and the work was done. Mr. Quincy was appointed by the 
Federalists in Congress to prepare an address of the minority 
to theii constituents, which he did in an ample and satisfactory 
manner. It may be found in the Appendix to Sullivan's Letters 
on Public Characters, and fills twenty-five pages of small type 
It was signed by all the Federal members of the House of 
Representatives, and published about the time Congress ad- 
journed. It is a clear, forcible, and temperate statement of 
the views of the minority as to the war and the measures which, 
preceded, and led to it, and it was accepted by the Federal party 
at large as a satisfactory exposition of the opinions, and a con- 
clusive defence of the conduct, of its signers. 

The experience of this session only confirmed my father in the 
resolution he had already formed, of declining another election 
to Congress, which he now formally announced. This deter- 
mination the remonstrances and even entreaties of his most 
valued friends could not shake. His private reasons were his 
unwillingness to be longer separated from his family. " To live 
longer separate from them," he says, "I would not. To take 
them with me to Washington my finances would not permit." 
Of his public reasons he gives the following account: — 

"My personal motives for leaving my seat in Congress are ex- 
plained ; my political, I shall also briefly state. Seven years of ob- 
servation and experience in the national Legislature had brought my 
mind to the conclusion that the Southern, as then called, but now the 
Slave-holdiruj States, Avere omnipotent in this Union. That their in- 
fluence was not temporary, but permanent, and that this state of rela- 
tive power in respect of the Free States was destined to continue for 
a long series of years, and probably for all future time. Another con- 
clusion my experience had established in my mind, that the princi- 
ples, prejudices, and interests of those Slave-holding States necessarily 
led to a pohcy incompatible with the interests and principles of the 
Free Slates, most especially of the commercial States. In this pro- 
spective view of the relations of the States, I clearly discerned that a 
continuance in Congress as a Representative from Boston condemned 
me to a life-long series of contests, laborious in their nature and hope- 
less as to their result, to which I had no disposition to condemn myself. 
I ihen behc'ed, as the com-se of my writings and speeches at that 



EBFECT OF THE WAR ON NEW ENGLAND. 261 

time sufficiently indicates, that the slave-holders' power bestrode the 
Union as the Old Man of the Sea did the shoulders of Sinbad the 
Sailor, — a power which no exertion could throw off, and which time 
would not unsettle, but rather confirm. This is not the place to 
state all the facts and circumstances on which this opinion was 
formed. It is enough that what was but opinion then the experi- 
ence of fifty years has proved to be truth.* ' 

" Other circumstances growing out of the relations of public affairs at 
the time, and the want of unison among Federalists themselves as to 
the political course to be pursued, disgusted me with the service. T 
found that a Representative in Congress from Boston, to be supported, 
must follow the opinion of his constituents concerning their real or 
imagined interests, and that in an independent course he was sure to 
be suspected or denounced. It was a state of subserviency which 
suited neither my pride nor my principles ; and, though sufficiently 
urged to continue, no representations could induce me to abandon my 
purpose of retirement from this part of the public stage. 

" I will not conceal that this determination was not made without re- 
o-ret. I had formed myself for a public man on a large and national 
scale. I had laboriously prepared for the service, as my private man- 
uscripts will evidence. For the sphere of State politics I had neither 
taste nor adaptation of mind, but I yielded my wishes to a sense of 
duty, and never regretted my decision," 

This stormy session over and the war with England pro- 
claimed, my father hastened home to his family, already estab- 
lished for the summer at Quincy. It was not a cloudless 
summer of country occupations and country pleasures. Gloom 
brooded over the land, and the present hour was embittered by 
anxiety for the future. The ruin of the commercial States 
seemed now to be a settled thing, and war invoked to devour 
whatever Embargo, Non-Importation, and Non-Intercourse had 
spared. The stagnation of business attending this last blow to 
commerce carried distress or anxiety into every household. It 
was small consolation to true lovers of their country, — which the 
Federalists were most emj)batically, — to find their predictions so 
speedily fulfilled in the disasters which attended our arms every- 
where along the Canada frontier in the opening campaign of the 
war, the thick-coming tidings of which helped to darken the 
* This was written in the year 1859. 



262 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

hours of that memorable season. And a general sense of per- 
sonal insecurity prevailed all along the seaboard. For the gov- 
ernment had vouchsafed no protection sufficient to save the cities 
from being laid under contribution by a British squadron, or to 
secure the coast from being laid waste by a single ship of war. 

In these last-named apprehensions the family at Quincy had 
good reason to share. For the estate bounds on the ocean, and 
the fears of boat-attacks and foraging-parties which had haunted 
that roof thirty years before returned again to disturb its repose. 
Every ship enters and leaves the port of Boston in full view 
of the windows of the house, and it may well be believed that 
a sharp lookout was kept up in the direction of the light-house. 
The first naval spectacle discerned from that post of observation, 
however, was a memorable and an auspicious one. It was the 
entrance of the Constitution into the harbor, on the 29th of 
August, 1812, after the capture of the Guerriere, I will copy 
the account of this event, and what immediately followed it, from 
the privately printed Memoir of my mother, by my eldest sister, 
of which I have already spoken. 

" At Quincy, tlie ships in the harbor, especially those apparently of 
a warlike character, were anxiously watched. Toward evening, on 
the 29th of August, 1812, a fi-igate (recognized as the Constitution, 
commanded by Captain Hull) came in under full sail, and dropped 
her anchor beside Rainsford Island, — then the Quarantine Ground. 
The next morning, a fleet of armed ships appeared off Point Alder- 
ton. As they rapidly approached, tiie Constitution was observed to 
raise her anchor and sails, and go boldly forth to meet the apparent 
enemy ; but, as the frigate passed the leader of the fleet, a friendly 
recognition was exchanged, instead of the expected broadside. They 
joined company, and the Constitution led the way to Boston. It was 
the squadron of United States ships, then commanded by Commodore 
Rodgers, unexpectedly returning from a long cruise. 

" A few days afterwards, Hull, who had just taken the Guemere, 
came with Decatur to breakfast at Quincy. When this incident was 
mentioned, he said: 'I must acknowledge, I participated in the appre- 
hensions of my friends on shore. Thinking myself safe in port, I told 
my officers to let the men wash tlieir clothes, and get the ship in order 
to go up tc Boston ; and, being excessively fatigued, went to my state- 



HULL AND DECATUR. 263 

room I was sound asleep when a lieutenant rushed down, exclaim- 
ing, "Captain, the British are upon us! — an armed fleet is entering 
the harbor ! " No agreeable inteUigence, certainly ; for I was wholly- 
unprepared to engage with a superior force. But, determined to sell 
our lives as dear as I could, I gave orders to clear the decks, weigh 
anchor, and get ready for immediate action. I confess I was greatly 
relieved when I saw the American flag, and recognized Rodgei-s.' In 
speaking of the conflict with the Guerriere, he said: 'I do not mind the 
day of battle ; the excitement carries one through : but the day after 
is fearful ; it Is so dreadful to see my men wounded and suffering.' 

" These naval officers formed a striking contrast. Hull was easy 
and prepossessing in his manners, but looked accustomed to face ' the 
battle and the breeze.' Decatur was uncommonly handsome, and re- 
markable for the delicacy and refinement of his appearance." 

This breakfast is one of the earliest of my own recollections. 
I was a very little child, but I remember perfectly well sittiipg on 
Decatur's knee, playing with his dirk, and looking up at his 
handsome face, the beauty of which struck even my childish 
eyes, and which I still seem to see looking at me from out the 
far past. I have no recollection of Hull at that time, but I often 
saw him in later years, and knew him well, as a very young man 
knows a distinguished elder. His manners certainly were easy 
as my sister describes them, and prepossessing in the sense of 
being eminently suitable to the man and characteristic of him. 
They were plain, bluff, and hearty, as became " a rough and 
boisterous captain of the sea," and indicated a good heart and a 
good temper, though not incapable of being ruffled on a sufficient 
occasion. I remember his telling the story of the fight with the 
Guerriere one day at my father's table in Boston. Poor Dacres, 
according to him, did not relish being beaten any more than 
"our wayward sisters" in the late Rebellion. One would in- 
fer that he must have been of the old-world breed of sea-dogs 
to which Commodore Trunnion belonged, rather than of the 
more polished modern school of naval officers. After he had 
struck his flag and was coming on board the Constitution, Cap- 
tain Hull stood ready to receive his prisoner with his best man- 
ners, and said to him, as he came up the side, with the proper 
salute, " Sir, I am happy to see you." " Ugh, d n you, 



264 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

I suppose you are ! " was the surly reply of John Bull, whc 
thought his captor meant to insult him ! Another thing I re- 
member tlie Commodore said, which I record in the interest of 
my colored friends. Speaking of the fighting qualities of his 
sailors, he said : " I never had any better fighters than the ne- 
groes," — (I am afraid he spelled the word "with two ^'s," — an 
orthography, according to Mr. Seward, fatal to the prospects of 
any Pres^idential candidate,) — " they stripped to the waist, and 
fought like devils, sir, seeming to be utterly insensible to danger, 
and to be possessed with a determination to oiittisiht tht^ white 
sailors." This testimony has been rendered superHuons, indeed, 
by the gallant record our black countrymen made for themselves, 
both by land and sea, during the late Rebellion ; but it shows 
how groundless as well as despicable was the subserviency to 
slavery which excluded brave men for years from the service of 
their country, because they wore 

" The shadowed livery of the burnished sun." 

It was during this summer that a meeting took place at 
Quincy between Ex-President Adams and his sometime Secre- 
tary of State, Colonel Timothy Pickering, for the first and only 
time after the former had summarily dismissed the latter from 
office in 1800. The differences which occasioned that dismissal 
are matter of history, and need not be recapitulated here. They 
were of a nature, however, to prevent kny personal intercourse 
between these eminent men — " good haters " both, after Dr. 
Johnson's own heart! — for the rest of their lives, excepting on 
this one occasion. It fell out on this wise. My father had 
been for several years one of the twelve trustees of the Massa- 
chusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, during which time 
Mr. Adams had been its President. It was the custom of this 
excellent Board — and I believe it is one still honored in the 
observance — to encourage the consumption of the kindly fruits 
of the earth, besides promoting their production, by a monthly 
dinner at the houses of the trustees in turn. In consequence 
of the unfriendly relations of Mr. Adams and Colonel Pickering, 
the trustees had been debarred the privilege of inviting the lat- 



MEETING OF JOHN ADAMS AND TIMOTHY PICKERING. 265 

ter gentleman to assist at any of their monthly festivals, which 
they regretted the more because he was as zealous in agriculture 
as in politics. This year, however, Mr. Adams had resigned his 
Presidency, and retired from the Board, on the ground that his 
age rendered the due discharge of the official and convivial du- 
ties of his post inconvenient to him. My father, knowing how 
interesting an addition the Ex-President always made to any 
party, invited him as a neighbor to meet his old colleagues once 
more at his table; and he readily agreed to come. The day 
arrived, and the host and hostess awaited the coming of tlieir 
guests with no foreboding of anything out of the common way. 
But when the company began to arrive, one of the first to make 
his appearance was Colonel Pickering, who, happening to be in 
Boston that day, readily accepted the invitation of Mr. John 
Lowell to accompany him to Quincy, well knowing how welcome 
he would be. The welcome he expected was as cordial as he 
could desire, but my mother felt obliged, while giving it, to tell 
him whom he would presently encounter, that he might decide 
for himself whether to stay or return to town. 

" I did not think of meeting Mr. Adams," he replied, " when I 
agreed to accompany Mr. Lowell hither, as I knew he had left 
the Board, and if my being here will occasion any uneasiness to 
yourself or Mr. Quincy, I will go away immediately. But, per- 
sonally, I have no objection to meeting Mr. Adams." 

Scarcely had this preliminary been adjusted, when Mr. Adams 
drove up. My father presented himself at the coach door, and 
made substantially the same statement of the existing state of 
affiiirs that my mother had just despatched, whicli the Ex-Presi- 
dent received in the same spirit that his former prime minister 
had manifested. 

" As your friend, Mr. Quincy," said he, " I shall be most hajt- 
py to see Colonel Pickering." 

Accordingly, after paying his respects to his hostess, he turned 
to Colonel Pickering, and they met with all the external cordial- 
ity of old friends who had been long separated, but never divid- 
ed. The possible awkwardness of this meeting might have been 
heightened to less experienced men of the world, by the fact that 
12 



266 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUmCY. 

Ml". Adams was accompanied by his son-in-law, Colonel "William 
S. Smith, whom he had nominated for Inspector- General, at the 
recommendation of Washington, when the array of 1798 was 
forming, and who had been rejected by the Senate, through the 
secret influence, as the Adams family believed, of Colonel Pick- 
ering.* Fortunately, however, the house at Quincy was not the 
Palace of Truth of the Genius Phanor, and everything was on 
velvet throughout the day. They took wine together, according 
to the good old-fashioned custom of the time ; they talked over 
old times and old friends, told old-world stories, and made them- 
selves exceedingly agreeable and entertaining to the company, 
and, we will hope, to one another. When the party broke up, 
and Colonel Pickering took his leave, he and Mr. Adams shook 
hands together, and expressed the pleasure they had had in each 
other's society, and parted, never to meet again in this world. 
After Colonel Pickering was gone, my mother expressed to Mr. 
Adams her hope that this unexpected meeting had not been un-. 
pleasant to him ; for it had been a most interesting one to her- 
self and the rest of the party. " No, madam," said he ; "I cer- 
tainly hope to meet Colonel Pickering in Heaven, and, next to 
Heaven, I surely should be willing to meet him here in your 
house." 

I have already mentioned the odd sort of intimacy which had 
sprung up between my father and John Randolph. It would be 
difficult to imagine two men more dissimilar in character and 
opinions than they were, and yet the regard that they enter- 
tained for each other was a very real one. It is said that my 
father was the only friend Randolph ever had with whom he did 
not quarrel, first or last. In a letter to my mother, my father 
chai;acterizes him thus: — 

" Randolph is an eccentric character, with great faults and some vir- 
tues, — a creature of whim and momentary impulse. He is just what 
the hour makes him, — a true friend where he professes friendship, a 
bitter enemy where he declares it. To serve the one or depress the 
other, he will go to the world's end. As a pohtlcian he keeps Vir- 

* Life and Works of John Adams, Vol. L p. 639. 



JOHN RANDOLPH AND HIS NEPHEW.. 267 

ginla always in his eye. While Massachusetts' claimed to be her only 
rival among the States, he wreaked the vengeance of his patriotism 
upon her and her satellites, as he called the other New England 
States. Now New York has taken the ascendant, I can plainly per- 
ceive that the current of his bile is concentrating about the Hudson. 
Upon the whole, he is a man who will always have more enemies than 
friends." . 

Randolph had all the prejudices of his section and his caste 
against New England. He once said to my father : " I never in- 
tend to set my foot on the farther bank of the Hudson. But if 
I ever should, your house shall be the first that I will enter." He 
never did visit this part of the country, though it will be seen, by 
some of his letters by and by, that he did at one time seriously 
contemplate sucli a journey. But, notwithstanding his antipathy 
to the land of the Puritans, when the question came up as to 
where his nephew and adopted son and heir, Theodoric Tudor 
Randolph, should be educated, he surmounted it so far as to 
choose the oldest University in the country as the place where 
the youth was to be taught his humanities. Young Randolph 
was the son of Richard Randolph, John Randolph's elder brother, 
who died in 1796. At Mr. Randolph's request, my father took 
charge of the young man on his last journey home, and placed 
him at Cambridge, in the house and under the immediate eye 
of President Kirkland. He is described as a tall, swarthy 
youth, with a good deal in his looks that seemed to justify his 
claim, of which his uncle was so proud, to a descent from Poca- 
hontas and Powhatan. He was a lad of fine abilities, and suffi- 
ciently attentive to his studies to take rank among the foremost 
in his class. Unhappily, his health failed towards the end of his 
college life, and he died in England before the class graduated ; 
but the Corporation, nevertheless, gave him his degree, and his 
name appears regularly in the Triennial Catalogue. My father 
had a general oversight of young Randolph, and the charge of 
his money matters, which gave occasion to a tolerably continuous 
correspondence with the uncle, of which I shall give the greater 
part, under the years to which they belong. 



268 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Mr. Randolph to Mr. Quincy. 

" Qeorgetowk, July 8, 1812. 

" Dear Sir: — Your considerate and obliging letter has just reached 
me. I do not regret the detention here which has caused me to re- 
ceive it. 'T is a source of great comfort to me to know that my son is 
under your kind protection, and I am unspeakably pleased to find 
that I am not singular in my approbation of his character and deport- 
ment. He is a creature almost of my entire formation, and I some- 
times feared that my partiality might cause me to exaggerate his good 
qualities, and to be bhnd to his defects. 

" I employ my last sheet of paper to acknowledge your attention to 
him and to me. Thanks ai-e too poor to be offered in such a case. 
Yom* own bosom will tell you what I must feel on the occasion. 

" 'T is said our sovereign lord the P is exceeding wroth at the 

addi-ess of certain heretics to their constituents ; * that he has pro- 
nounced that (except the overt act) it is treason ; that he could have 
borne anything else ; but this is proof of division, etc, etc Ac- 
cept my best wishes for Mrs. Quincy and yourself 

" John Randolph of Roanoke. 

" The excessive heat has deterred me from commencing my journey. 
Be so good as to give my best love to Tudor, and present me respect- 
fully to Mr. Kirkland. 1 shall write to them both as soon as I can get 
over my present depression of strength and spirits." 

The Same to the Same. 

" Richmond, July 24, 1812. 

" Dear Sir : — By severe indisposition I have been detained here 
since the 12th of the month. Every art has been played off by gov- 
ernment to affect the public mind in the State generally, and especial- 
1}' in my district, but with very httle success. In my opinion there is a 
great but silent change in the current of public sentiment, by no 
means favorable to the Administration ; but our general-ticket system 
will prevent its being felt in the Presidential election. 

" I have just read the Newburyport Address and the Boston Res- 
olutions. You men of New England are considered here as irreclaim- 
able heretics, and we meditate to rescue the Cradle (may it not 
prove the Sepulchre !) of American liberty from the political infidels. 

I * The address of the minority in Congress. 



LETTERS FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 269 

You will see some resolutions of the County of Charlotte. Had Gen- 
eral Dearborn and his friends preoccupied the Exchange, and passed 
resolutions, they woidd have been as fair an expression of the public 

opinion of Boston as these are of Charlotte Thank you for the 

pamphlet. My best wishes attend Mrs. Quincy, and believe me, dear 
Sir, with much regard, your obliged friend and servant, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke. 
" My compliments to Mr. Otis. When you see Mr. Reed, greet 
him in my name." 

The Same to the Same, 

" Roanoke, Va., Aug. 2, 1812. 

" Dear Sir : — On my arrival here I found your very obhging and 
friendly letter of the 12th, together with Mr. Blake's Oration, for both 
of which I ask your acceptance of my best thanks. I received at the 
same time two letters from my son, in both of which he speaks as be- 
comes him of your kind and marked attentions to him. On this sub- 
ject I will repress my Inclination to dwell. Your own bosom will tell 
you what must be my feelings towards you. It is a source of proud 
gratification to me to find that my boy Bolds no mean place in your 
estimation. Sometimes I have been inclined to think that I was led 
away by a natural but weak partiality. At others (after making am- 
ple allowance on this score), I have felt confident that he would im- 
press all who saw him long enough to know him, that he was no 
ordinary boy. 

" To return to the topic which has been under discussion during the 
last eight months. I fear you will ' look (in vain) to Virginia for any 
exertion to shake off the Incubus.' For though a majority of the peo- 
ple (hereabouts for example) disapprove the war, there is a general 
sentiment prevailing that this disapprobation should be suppressed to 
avoid an ill effect abroad. Another cause also operates. The only 
war within the memory of man (a few superannuated excepted) is the 
war of our Revolution. And that being a civil war, every man not 
entering heartily into the cause was justly deemed an enemy, and 
often treated as such. A fear of similar consequences under the pres- 
ent circumstances renders the greater part of the people shy and re- 
seived. In fact, men are afraid to speak their sentiments. This state 
of things has emboldened Mr. Eppes to come forward as my opponent. 
My friends are very confident there is nothing to be feared from his 
exertions. Through the press, Administration have complete com- 
mand of the pubUc opinion of Virginia. I know but of two Opposi- 



2Y0 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

tion papers in tlie State, and the principal one (at Richmond) is 
utterly Avorthless and inefficient. Its inanity has destroyed its circu- 
lation. 

" My health has been so extremely bad that I have seen nobody 
since I came home. When I left Washington, it was with a wish that 
I might never see it again. I have every inducement to withdraw 
from public life ; none to remain in it, except a sense of barren duty, 
where hope finds nothing to achieve. My disorder admonishes me to 
lay aside my pen. 

" With very high respect and regard, I am, dear sir, your obhged 
humble servant, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke." 

The Same to the" Same. 

" Roanoke, August 16, 1812. 

" Dear Sir : — Your letter of the 15th of July has just reached me, 
and I despatch these hurried lines to assure you that I am not unmind- 
ful of your very kind attention to Tudor, and that I am as deeply im- 
pressed as yourself can be with the importance of the present crisis. I 
hate the word, but there is none other ready at hand. My last, if it have 
reached its place of destination, will have informed you of the state of 
public sentiment in this quarter, where we are as ignorant of the tem- 
per prevailing in the Eastern States as the people of New Holland 
can be. I feel the full force of all that you have urged on the subject 
of the prevailing discontents in the Northern and Eastern sections of 
the United States, but I doubt whether any efficient opposition can be 
organized against the present ruling party in our country. 

" For my own re-election I have no fears ; but, althougli four out of 
five of our people disapprove the war and its advisers, yet a spirit pre- 
vails to support it so long as the constituted authorities shall enjoin 
that duty upon the nation ; and to consider it, like the Revolutionary 
contest, as a struggle in which every man who does not rally round 
the standard of the government ought to be adjudged as disaffected 
to the cause of the country. In a few days I shall write you more at 
large. You will perceive that I have anticipated your idea as to a 
mode of communication between us which may baffle the spies of the 
post-office ; for although I have nothing to say that I would not utter 
in the market-place, and which I have not repeatedly pronounced in 
my place on the floor of Congress, yet I do not choose to subject my 
private correspondence to the revision of these State inquisitors. I 
wrote to you from Richmond, and again since I got home. From 



LETTERS FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 271 

time to time you may expect to hear from me through this channel 
I was at last Charlotte Court; my constituents were anx,ous that I 
should address them publicly. In deference *« their expectations I 
did so, and very general satisfaction was the result I told t^.em that, 
Hxnder different circumstances, all that I would have asked at the.r 
hands would have been an honest dismission; and such, had 1 con- 
sulted either my interest or my ease, would have been the pe >tion 
which I should have preferred before them. But that I cou d not rec- 
oncile it either to my sense of duty or to my feelings of inclination to 
abandon them in the hour of trial and In the day of danger, pro M 
it was their unbiased wish that I should continue to represent them. 
That if I had any cause to think (or should see any) that their con- 
fidence In me was in any wise withdrawn, or that they were mdiflferent 
in that behalf, I would willingly resign my pretensions to some more 
capable, but, I must be suffered to say, not more faithful Kepresenta 

*'''» I dare not trust my pen with the subject of the Baltimore Septem.^ 
briseurs, who have found among us ' an asylum for oppressed humanity. 
We have yet no distinct accounts of this horrible transaction.* _ 
" In haste, but with every good wish for yourself and Mrs. Quincy. 

I am, dear sir, very truly yours, 

"John Randolph of Koaxoke. 

* The Baltimore Democratic mob of June 26 and 27, 1812 organized for the 
destruction of the Federal Republican newspaper. General L>ngan, a RevoUv- 
tionary officer, was most barbarously murdered, and General Henry Lee, 
"LTghlnorse karry " of the Revolution, father of Robert E. Lee the leader 
of the Rebel forces, crippled for life. Alexander Contee Hanson the editor of 
the paper, was left for dead, and never recovered fully from the in,ur.«8 h« 
received. 



272 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 



CHAPTER XII. 

1812-1813. 
Mr Quincy's last Session. — Speech on the Enlistment of Minors. — 

FXHE-EATING TACTICS. — SPEECH IN BeHALF OF THE MERCHANTS. — DE- 
FINES HIS Position again. — Speech on the Invasion of Canada. — 
Excitement caused by it. — Mr. Clay's Diatribe. — Laconic Rejoin- 
der. — Later Relations with Mr. Clay. — Speeches on Classifying 
THE Militia and the Prohibition of Foreign Seamen. — Felix Grundy 
and his Constituents. — Mr. Quincy's Relations with Mr. Ran- 
dolph. — And with Harmanus Bleeckeb of Albany. — Takes a Final 
Leave of Congress. 

MR. QUINCY left Boston for Washington on the 11th of 
November, 1812, in company with Senator Lloyd, and 
arrived, travelling by stage-coach, in the astonishingly short space 
of a week ; for he took his seat on the 18th. He had formed 
the resolution not to take an active part in the deliberations of the 
House, experience having satisfied him " that resistance to what- 
ever a majority had determined to do was hopeless, and that the 
will of the Cabinet was the law of the land." But it was easier to 
make than to keep such a resolve, especially for one of his ardent 
and impulsive temperament. On the third day after taking his 
seat he was on his legs making a speech, perhaps the most exas- 
perating to the Administration he had yet uttered. It was on a 
bill " concerning the pay of non-commissioned officers " ; but the 
occasion of his indignant remonstrance and protest was a clause 
in it which authorized the enlistment of minors without the con- 
sent first had of parents, guardians, or masters, which he stigma- 
tized as nothing less than atrocious. I will give a few extracts 
from it as specimens of its character. 

" The nature of this provision is apparent, its tendency Is not de- 
nied. It is to seduce mlnore of all descriptions, be they wards, ap- 
prentices, or children, from the service of their guardians, mastei-s, and 
parents. Ou this principle I rest my objection to the bill. I meddle 



SPEECH ON THE ENLISTMENT OF MINORS. 273 

not with the nature of the war ; nor is it because I am hostile to thia 
war, both in its principle and its conduct, that I at present make any 
objection to the provisions of the bill. I say nothing against its waste 
of public money. If eight dollars a month for the private be not 
enough, take sixteen dollars ; if that be not enough, take twenty. 
Economy is not my difficulty. Nor do I think much of that objection 
of which my honorable friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Mllnor) seemed 
to think a great deal, — the liberation of debtors fi'om their obliga- 
tions Wo far as relates to the present argument, without any objec- 
tion from me you may take what temptations you please, and ajjply 
them to the ordinary haunts for enlistment, — clear the jails, exhaust 
the brothel, make a desert of the tippllng-shop, — lay what snares you 
jilease for overgrown vice, for lunacy which is of full age, and idiocy 
out of its time. 

" But here stop. Touch not private right, — regard the sacred ties 
of guardian and master, — corrupt not our youth, — listen to the ne- 
cessities of our mechanics and manufacturers, — have compassion for 
the tears of parents. 

" Mr. Speaker, what a picture of felicity has the President of the 
United States drawn in describing the situation of the yeomanry 
of this country ! Their condition happy, — subsistence easy, — wages 
high, — full employ. To such favored beings what would be the sug- 
gestions of love truly parental ? Surely that so much happiness 
should not be put at hazard, — that innocence should not be tempted 
to scenes of guilt, — that the prospering ploughshare should not be ex- 
changed for the sword. Such would be the lessons of parental love. 
And such will always be the lessons which a President of the United 
States will teach in such a state of things, whenever a father of his 
country is at the head of the nation. Alas ! Mr. Speaker, how dif- 
ferent is this Message ! The burden of the thought is, how to aecoy 
the happy yeoman from home, from peace and prosperity, to scenes 
of blood, — how to bait the man-trap, — what inducements shall be 
held forth to avarice, which neither virtue nor habit nor wise influ- 
ences can resist. But this is not the whole. Our children are to be 
seduced from their parents ; apprentices are invited to abandon their 
masters; a legislative sanction is offered to perfidy and treachery; 
bounty and wages to filial disobedience. Such are the moral means 
by which a war not of defence or of necessity, but of pride and ambi- 
tion, should be prosecuted. Fit means to such end ! 

" The absurdity of this bill consists in this, — in supposing these 

12* R 



274 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINOY. 

provisions to be the remedy for the evil of which the Presid(»nt com- 
plains. The difficulty is that men cannot be enlisted. The remedy 
proposed is more money, and legislative liberty to coi-rupt our 
youth. And how is this proved to be a remedy ? Why, it has been 
told us, on the other side of the House, that this in just the thing theif do 
in France, — that the age between eighteen and twenty-one is the 
best age to make soldiers, — that it is the most favorite age in Bona- 
parte's conscription. AVell, Sir, what then ? Are we in France ? Is 
Napoleon our King ? or is he the President of the United States ? 

" Sir, the great mistake of this whole project lies in this, — that 
French maxims are applied to American States. Now, it ought never 
to be lost sight of by legislator in this country, that the people of it 
are not and never can be Frenchmen, — and, on the contrary, that 
they are, and can never be anything but Freemen. 

" The true source of the absurdity of this bill is a mistake in the 
nature of the evil. The President of the United States tells us that 
the Administration have not sufficient men for their armies. The 
reason is, he adds, the want of pecuniary motive. In this lies the 
error. It is not pecuniary motive that is wanting to fill your armies. 
It is moral motive in which you are deficient. Sir, whatever ditference 
of opinion may exist among the happy and wise yeomanry of New 
England in relation to the principle and necessity of this war, there 
13 very little, or at least much less, diversity of sentiment concerning 
the invasion of Canada as a means of prosecuting it. They do not 
•want Canada as an object of ambition. They do not want it as an 
object of plunder. They see no imaginable connection between the 
conquest of that province and the attainment of those commercial 

rights which were the pretended objects of the war They have 

no desire to be the tools of the ambition of any man or any set of 
men. Schemes of conquest have no charms for them. 

" Abandon your projects of invasion, throw your shield over the 
seaboard and the fi-ontier, awe into silence the Indians in your terri- 
tory, fortify your cities, take the shackles fi-om your commerce, give 
us ships and seamen, and show the people of that country a wise ob- 
ject of warflire, and there will be no want of men, money, or spirit. 

" Now, Sir, of all the distinctions which exist in these United States, 
that which results from the character of the labor in different parts of 
the country is the most obvious and critical. In the Southern States 
all the laborious industry of the country is conducted by slaves. In 



SPEECH ON THE ENLISTMENT OF MINORS. 275 

the Northern States it is conducted by the yeomanry, their appren- 
tices or children. The truth is, that the only real property in the la- 
bor of others which exists in the Northern States is that which is 
possessed in that of minors, the very class of which, at its most valua- 
ble period, this law proposes to divest them. The planter of the 
South can look round upon his fifty, his hundred, or his thousand of 
human beings, and say, ' These are my property.' The farmer of the 
North has only one or two ' ewe lambs,' his children, of which he can 
say, and say with pride, like the Roman matron, ' These are my orna- 
ments.' Yet these this bill proposes to take from him, or, what is the 
same thing, proposes to corrupt them, — to bribe them out of his ser- 
vice ; and that, too, at the very age when the desire of freedom is the 
most active, and the splendor of false glory the most enticing. Yet 
your slaves are safe, — there is no project for their manumission in th** 
bill. The husbandman of the North, the mechanic, the manufacturer, 
shall have the property he holds in the minors subject to him put to 
hazard. Your property in the labor of others is safe. Where is the 
justice, where the equality, of such a provision ? 

" I know it is said, that in our country minors are subjected to 
militia duty; and so they are. But this very service is a proof 
of the position which I maintain : their obligation to serve in the 
mihtia is always subject to the paramount authority of the master and 
the parent. 

" The law says, it is true, that minors shall be subject to militia duty. 
But it also permits the father and the master to relieve them from that 
obligation at an established price. If either will pay the fine, be may 
retain the service of the minor free from the militia duty. What 'S 
the consequence of all this ? Why, that the minor always trains, not 
free of the will, but subject to the will of his natural or legal guar- 
dians. The moral tie is sacred. It is never broken. It is a principle 
that, cases of misconduct out of the question, the minor shall never 
conceive himself capable of escaping from the wholesome and wise 
control of his master or father. The proposed law cuts athwart this 
wise principle. It preaches infidelity. It makes every recruiting offi- 
cer in your country an apostle of perfidy. It says to every vain, 
thoughtless, discontented, or ambitious minor : ' Come hither ; here 
is an asylum from your bonds ; here are wages and bounty for dis- 
obedience. Only consent to go to Canada, — forget what you owe to 
nature and your protectors, — go to Canada, and you shall find free- 
dom and glory.' Such is the morality of this law. 



276 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" Take a slave from his master on any general and novel principle, 
and there would be an earthquake from the Potomac to the St. 
Mary's. Bribe an apprentice from his master, — seduce a son worth 
all the slaves Africa ever produced from his father, — we are told it 
is only a common affair. It will be right when there is law for it. 
Such is now the law in France ! " 

This speech called down upon its author the bitterest personal- 
ities and the most furious rage from the Administration leaders 
that had yet been wreaked upon him. Mr. David R. Williams* 
of South Carolina, who introduced the bill, declared Mr. Quincy's 
qualification of the clause as "atrocious" to be "a libel upon him- 
self, which he threw back upon him who uttered it as a foul, 

atrocious libel on the committee He threw it back in the 

teeth of the assertor as an atrocious falsehood." Mr. Troup of 
Georgia, with a classical zeal not altogether according to knowl- 
edge, said, " If in the days of Rome's greatness, if in the proud 
days of Grecian glory, a man could have been found base and hardy 
enough to withhold the young men from the public service, to turn 
them from the path of honor, or restrain them from the field of 
fame, he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, or con- 
signed to the Cave of Trophonius ! " And so on. It was a part of 
the political tactics of the Southern members to affect to consider 
denunciations of the measures they supported as personal insults 
to themselves. Mr. Quincy did not reply at this time ; but took 
occasion afterwards, as will be seen, to expose the folly and fal- 
lacy of this assumption. The bill passed the House, but the 
objectionable clause was struck out in the Senate ; only four 
voting for it, in consequence, as Mr. Quincy affirmed, of the 
opposition made to it, by himself chiefly, in the House of Rep- 
resentatives. 

On the 14th of the next month he was again provoked to break 
silence by the following scheme, devised by Mr. Gallatin, the 
Secretary of the Treasury, to extract ten millions from the 
pockets of the merchants, under this pretence. By the terms of 
the Non-Importation Act the prohibited articles were to be for* 

* David R. Williams, Member of Congress, 1805 to 1809 and 1811 to 1813 
Governor of South Carolina, 1814 to 1816. 



SPEECH IN BEHALF OF THE MERCHANTS. 277 

feited, of course, if imported. Just about the time of our decla- 
ration of war, England revoked her Orders in Council, in con- 
sequence of Bonaparte's revocation of his Decrees which had 
occasioned them. The news of the declaration of war had not 
yet reached England, and the American merchants there, taking 
it for granted that the Non-Importation Act would be repealed 
at once, if it did not expire by its terms on the revocation of the 
Orders, loaded their ships with the prohibited articles, openly 
and in entire good faith, and despatched them to the United 
States. But the act had not expired ; war had been declared ; 
the merchandise was forfeited, and, in strictness, three times its 
value besides. The penalty, howevei', Mr. Gallatin did not pro- 
pose exacting. He only suggested that the half of the forfeiture 
which would go to the United States, if it were enforced, should 
be exacted, the half which would go to the informer being re- 
mitted. He claimed the power to do this by virtue of his office ; 
but preferred first obtaining the consent of Congress. The 
speech which Mr. Quincy made on this proposition is mainly a 
careful argument against the right thus claimed by the Secretary 
to remit forfeitures at his pleasure, on such terms as he might 
judge best. The imposition of terms, he maintained, was limited 
to cases of wilful negligence or fraud. Where there was no pre- 
tence of the existence of these conditions, as in the cases in 
question, all he had to do was to remit the forfeitures, without 
taking advantage of innocent ei-ror to extort money for the gov- 
ernment. It is not necessary to recapitulate his arguments on 
this point ; but I will subjoin a few characteristic passages from 
the concluding part of the speech. 

" I shall touch this subject of the restrictive system with as much 
delicacy as possible. I wish not to offend any prejudices. I know 
that the zeal and ardent affection which some gentlemen show for this 
restrictive system very much resemble the loves of those who, accord- 
ing to ancient legends, had taken philters and love-powders. The ec- 
stasy of desire is just in proportion to the deformity of the object. I 
shall not, however, meddle with that topic any further than it is con- 
nected with the subject before the House. 



2T8 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" I know it will be said that it is not proposed to confiscate tlie 
whole, but only a part. In other words, you will take not all that you 
want, but aU that you dare. To this I reply, you have no right to a 
single dollar, — not to a cent. The merchants are free from all legal 
taint ; they are free from all statute guilt. There is in the case 
neither ' wilful negligence nor fraud.' The Secretary of the Treas- 
ury does not pretend either ; but this is his situation, and this is th^ 
secret of his application to Congress for their sanction to his exercise 
of this great discretionary power. Confiscate the whole of this im- 
mense amount, ruin hundreds and thousands on account of a breach 
of the letter of a penal statute, he dare not. Mitigate upon any 
principle which would aid the treasury in its necessities, he could 
not. He therefore transfers the whole matter to the broad shoulders 
of the Legislature. 

" I shall not be able to speak upon this subject, I fear, without of- 
fending the nice sensibilities of some gentlemen in the House. Of 
late an opinion seems to be gaining ground upon this floor, that a 
member cannot denominate a doctrine or principle to be base or 
wicked, without attributing those qualities to those who may have 
happened to advocate such doctrine or principle. And this, too, not- 
withstanding he expressly declares that he has no intention of apply- 
ing attributes to such persons, nor even intimating that their view is 
the same with his own upon the subject. I protest. Sir, against such a 
restriction of the rights of debate, as totally inconsistent with the ne- 
cessary freedom of public investigation. It Is not only the right, but 
it is the duty, of every man to whose moral perception anything pro- 
posed or asserted seems base or wicked, to brand such proposition or 
assertion with its appropriate epithet. He owes this duty not only to 
the public, but to the individual who has been unfortunate or mistaken 
enough to advocate such an opinion or make such assertion. And 
provided he does this as the state of his own perception on the subject, 
and without attributing motives or similar perceptions of the thing to 
others, not only there is no reasonable ground of offence, but, on tho 
contrary, such a course is the only one reconcilable with duty. How 
else shall the misguided or mistaken be roused from their moral leth- 
argy, or blindness, to a sense of the real condition or nature of things ? 
What mortal has an intellect so clear as not sometimes to have his 
view of things doubtful or obscure ? Whose moral standard is so 
fixed and perfect that It never fails him at the moment of need ? 
If, after these explanations, any person takes an exception at the 



SPEECH IN BEHALF OF THE MERCHANTS. 279 

Btatement of my perceptions on this subject, and any hot humor 
should fl)' out into vapor upon the occasion, it has its Uberty. I shall 
regard it no more than ' the snapping of a chestnut in a farmer's fire.' 
" I say then, Mr. Speaker, that to my view, — let it be understood, 
Sir, I do not assert that it is even the true view, much less that it is 
the view of any gentleman who advocates an opposite do ;trine, — I say 
that to my view, and for my single self, / rwuld as soon I e concerned in 
a highway robbery as in this treasury attempt. Sir, I thi nk a highway 
robbery a little higher in point of courage, and a little less in point of 
iniquity. In point of courage there is obviously no comparison. In 
point of the quality of the moral purpose, the robber who puts his pis- 
tol to your breast only uses his power to get your property. He at- 
X tacks nothing but your person. But in this treasury attempt the 
\ reputation of the victim is to be attacked to make an apology for 
', confiscating his property. Guilt is alleged, — guilt of which he is 
clear by the terms of the law, — for the purpose of making him, 
though innocent, compound for escaping the penalty. What is this 
but making calumny the basis of plunder ? 

" I have been told. Sir, that this state of opinion ought to be con- 
cealed, — that it was calculated to offend. I have been also told, 
that we on th^s side of the House ought not to take any part in this 
debate, — that a party current would be made to set upon the question, 
and this to the merchants was inevitable ruin. To all this I have but 
one answer. My sense of duty allows no compromise on this occasion, 
nor any concealment. I stand not on this floor as a commercial agent, 
huckstering for a bargain. As one of the Representatives of the peo- 
ple of Massachusetts, I maintain the rights of these men, not because 
tliey are merchants, but because they are citizens. The standard by 
which their rights are proposed to be measured may be made the 
common standard for us all. There will soon be no safety for any 
man, if fines, penalties, and forfeitures be once established as the 
ways and means of the treasury. 

" If I could wish that evil might be done that good might result, 
I should hope that you would confiscate the property of these mer- 
chants. If such a disposition really prevails in the national Legisla- 
ture towards this class of men, it is desirable that it should be known. 
Act out your whole character ; show the temper which is in you. 
The sooner will the people of the commercial States understand what 
they owe to themselves and to their section of country, when there la 
no longer anv veil over the purposes of the Cabinet and its supporteis 



280 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" But it will be asked, What -will become in the mean time of the 
individuals whose whole fortunes are at stake? Trembling for the 
prospects of themselves and their families, they stand like thrice- 
knouted Russians before the treasury Czar and Autocrat. I say, Sir 
let them be true to themselves, and true to their class, and true to their 
country, and they have nothing to fear. Let them remember that it 
is under the pretexts of law that all tyranny makes its advances. It 
bribes the avarice of the many to permit it to oppress the few. It 
talks of necessity. Necessity, — the beggar's cloak, the tyrant's plea. 
Let the merchants refuse all compromise, whether in the shape of 
loans, or of equivalents, or of commutation for extra profits. Let them 
scorn, while innocent, to pay any part of a penalty which is due 
only in case of guilt, — fly to the States, and claim their constitutional 
interposition, — interest their humanity to afford a shield against so 
grievous a tyranny. Above all, let them throw themselves upon the 
moral sentiment of the community, which will never countenance, 
when once made to realize the nature of the oppression. And let this 
be their consolation, that, as in the natural, so it is often in the moral 
and political world, — the darkest hour of the night is that which pre- 
cedes the first dawning of the day." 

It will be seen that my father took this occasion'to expose and 
denounce the stratagem the Southern Administration-men habit- 
ually employed, for purposes of intimidation, of treating seventy 
of language applied to the measure they introduced as insulting 
to themselves individually. He " defined his position," to use a 
later political formula, very clearly, and showed as clearly that 
he was not intimidated by the frantic scurrility of the attacks 
made upon him a few days before for his speech on the Enlist- 
ment of Minors. If any doubt remained on this point, it was 
certainly dispersed by his speech on the Invasion of Canada, 
which soon followed. 

This famous speech — for the effect it had on friends and foes, 
its wide circulation and permanent reputation, may entitle it to 
be so described — was delivered on the 5th of January, 1813. 
It was, as he himself says of it, " most direct, pointed, and 
searching as to the motives and conduct of our rulers. It ex- 
posed openly and without reserve or fear the iniquity of the pro- 
posed invasion of Canada. In reprobating the true tendency and 



DEFINES fflS POSITION AGAIN. 281 

object of this project, I was sparing of neither language nor illus- 
tration. I openly and directly exposed the intention of the Ad- 
ministration to create the office of Lieutenant-General, and to 
raise Monroe to it, in terms so explicit and severe, that it was 
seen to be impossible to carry it into effect. It had previously 
been known and avowed." The great length of this speech, and 
the compactness of its argument, make it impossible for me to 
give a just idea of its force and spirit by extracts without absorb- 
ing more space than I can spare. Its invective, is keen, its sai'- 
casm bitter, its denunciations heavy and severe ; but the facts 
from which these derive their sting or their weight are clearly 
stated and sustained, and it keeps well within the prescribed 
limits of parliamentary proprieties, avoiding all personal reflec- 
*tions and allusions not demanded and justified by the necessity 
which called for them. Its author might well say, on reading 
it over in his old age, that " he shrunk not from the judgment 
of after times." He considers the subject of the invasion of 
Canada, — 1st, as a means of carrying on the war ; 2d, as a means 
of obtaining an early and honorable peace ; and, 3d, as a means 
of advancing the personal and local projects of ambition of the 
members of the American Cabinet. As a means of carrying on 
the war, he denounces the invasion of Canada as " cruel, wanton, 
senseless, and wicked," — an attempt to compel the mother coun- 
try to our terms by laying waste an innocent province, which had 
never injured us, but which had long been connected with us by 
habits of good neighborhood and mutual good offices. As a 
means of procuring peace, he ridiculed the idea that a powerful 
and haughty nation was likely to be intimidated or propitiated by 
a proceeding which touched her national honor, and irritated her 
national pride in the tenderest point. He exonerated the Cabi- 
net, indeed, from being under this delusion ; but it was on the 
ground that the inva-ion was undertaken by them for the very 
purpose of preventing a pacific solution of the questions at issue ; 
affirming " that the embarrassment of our relations with Great 
Britain, and the keeping alive, between this country and that, of 
a root of bitterness, has been, is, and will continue to be a main 
principle of the policy of this American Cabinet." This view 



282 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

he supports by a review of the whole course of the Democratic 
Administrations in relation to England and France, from the 
time of the accession of Jefferson. From this point he natu- 
rally advances to the consideration of his tliirtl proposition, — that 
the invasion of Canada was intended to promote the personal 
objects of the Cabinet. The Democratic party having attained 
power by fostering the old grudge against England, and having 
maintained itself in power by force of that antipathy, a con- 
sent to the declaration of war had been extorted from the re- 
luctant Madison as the condition precedent of his nomination 
for a second terra of office. The invasion of Canada was de- 
manded by the Hotspurs of the South and West as a proof of 
the sincerity of the Cabinet in its war policy, and as the condi- 
tion of their support of its measures and of the Virginia suc- 
cession. And he winds up his speech by charging the Cabinet 
directly with intending to invest Mr. Monroe, one of their own 
number, the actual Secretary of State and acting Secretary of 
War, and the pre-ordained successor of Mr. Madison, with the 
chief command of the army and the rank of Lieutenant- General. 
This premised, I subjoin a few specimens of the temper and 
spirit of this speech, which produced a profound sensation in 
Congress and throughout the country, and had the effect of de- 
feating the contemplated elevation of Mr. Monroe. 

" The bill brings necessarily into deliberation the conquest of Can- 
ada, either as an object in itself desirable, or inferentially advantageous 
by its effect in producing an early and honorable peace. 

" Before 1 enter upon the discussion of those topics which naturally 
arise from this statement of the subject, I will ask your indulgence for 
one moment, while I make a few remarks upon this intention of the 
American Cabinet thus unequivocally avowed. I am induced to this 
fi-om the knowledge which I have that this design is not deemed to be 
serious by some men of both political parties, as well within this House 
as out of it. I know that some of the friends of the present Adminis- 
tration do consider the proposition as a mere feint, made for the pur- 
pose of putting a good face upon things, and of strengthening the hope 
of a successful negotiation, by exciting the apprehensions of the Brit- 
ish Cabinet for the fate of their Colonies. I know, also, that some of 
those who are opposed in political sentiment to the men who are now 



SPEECH ON THE INVASION OF CANADA. 283 

at the head of affairs laugh at these schemes of invasion, and deem 
them hardly worth controversy, on account of their opinion of the im- 
becility of the American Cabinet, and the embarrassment of its re- 
sources. 

" I am anxious that no doubt should exist upon this subject, either 
in the House or in the nation. Whoever considers the object of this 
bill to be any other than that which has been avowed is mistaken. 
Whoever believes this bill to be a means of peace, or anything else 
than an instrument of vigorous and long-protracted war, is grievously 
deceived. And whoever acts under such mistake or such deception 
will have to lament one of the grossest, and perhaps one of the most 
critical, errors of his political life. I warn, therefore, my political op- 
ponents — those honest men, of which I know there are some, who, pay- 
ing only a general attention to the course of pubUc affairs, submit the 
guidarce of their opinions to the men who stand at the helm — not to 
vote for this bill under any belief that its object is to aid negotiation 
for peace. Let such gentlemen recur to their past experience on sim- 
ilar occasions. They will find that it has been always the case, when- 
ever any obnoxious measure is about to be passed, that its passage is 
assisted by the aid of some such collateral suggestions. 

"I warn also my political friends. These gentlemen are apt to 
place great reliance on iheir own intelligence and sagacity. Some of 
these will tell you that the invasion of Canada is impossible. They 
ask, Where are the men, where is the money to be obtained ? And 
they talk very wisely concerning common sense and common pru- 
dence, and will show with much learning how this attempt is an of- 
fence against both the one and the other. But, Sir, it has been my lot 
to be an observer of the character and conduct of the men now in 
power for these eight years past. And I state without hesitation, that 
no scheme ever was or ever will be rejected by them merely on ac- 
count of its running counter to the ordinary dictates of common sense 
and common prudence. On the contrary, on that very account I be- 
lieve it more likely to be both suggested and adopted by them. And 
— what may appear a paradox — for that very reason the chance is 
rather increased that it will be successful. 

" I could illustrate this position twenty ways, I shall content my- 
self with remarking only upon two instances, and those recent, — the 
present war, and the late invasion of Canada. When war against 
Great Britain was proposed at the last session, there were thousands 
in these United States, and I confess to you I was myself among the 



284 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

number, who believed not one word of the matter. T put my trust in 
the old-fashioned notions of common sense and common prudence. 
That a people which had been more than twenty years at peace should 
enter upon hostilities against a people which had been twenty years at 
war, — that a nation whose army and navy were little more than nom- 
inal should engage in war with a nation possessing one of the best-ap- 
pointed armies and the most powerful marine on the globe, — that a 
country to which neutrality had been a perpetual harvest should 
throw that great blessing away for a controversy in which nothing was 
to be gained, and everything valuable put in jeopardy, — from these 
and innumerable like considerations, the idea seemed so absurd, that 
I never once entertained it as possible. And now, after war has been 
declared, the whole affair seems so extraordinary and so utterly ir- 
reconcilable with any previous suggestions of wisdom and duty, that I 
know not what to make of it, or how to believe it. Even at this mo- 
ment my mind is very much in the state of certain Pennsylvanian 
Germans, of whom I have heard it asserted that they are taught to be- 
lieve by their political leaders, and do at this moment believe the 
allegation that war is at present existing between the United States 
and Great Britain to be a ' Federal falsehood.' 

" It was just so with respect to the invasion of Canada. I heard of 
it last June. I laughed at the idea, as did multitudes of others, as an 
attempt too absurd for serious examination. I was in this case again 
beset by common sense and common prudence. That the United 
States should precipitate itself upon the unoifending people of that 
neighboring colony, unmindful of all previously subsisting amities, 
because the parent state three thousand miles distant had violated 
some of our commercial rights, — that we should march inland to de- 
fend our ships and seamen, — that with raw troops, hastily collected, 
miserably appointed, and destitute of discipline, we should invade a 
country defended by veteran forces at least equal in point of numbers 
to the invading army, — that bounty should be offered and proclama- 
tions issued inviting the subjects of a foreign power to treason and 
rebellion, under the influences of a quarter of the country upon which 
a retort of the same nature was so obvious, so easy, and in its conse- 
quences so awful, — in every aspect the design seemed so fraught with 
danger and disgrace, that it appeared absolutely impossible that it 
should be seriously entertained. Those, however, who reasoned after 
this manner were, as the event proved, mistaken. The war was de- 
clared ; Canada was invaded. We were in haste to plunge into these 
great difficulties ; and we have now reason as well as leisure enough for 
regret and repentance. 



SPEECH OK THE INVASION OF CANADA. 285 

" The great mistake of all those who reasoned concerning the war 
and the invasion of Canada, and concluded that it was impossible that 
either should be seriously intended, resulted from this, — that they 
never took into consideration the connection of both those events with 
the great election for the chief magistracy which was then pendino-. 
It never was sufficiently considered by them, that plunging into war 
with Great Britain was among the conditions on which support for the 
Presidency was made dependent. They did not understand that an 
invasion of Canada was to be in truth only a mode of carrying on an 
electioneering campaign. But since events have explained political 
purposes, there is no difficulty in seeing the connections between pro- 
jects and interests. It is now apparent to the most mole-sighted how 
a nation may be disgraced, and yet a Cabinet attain its desired honors. 
All is clear : a country may be ruined in making an Administration 
happy. 

" Concerning the invasion of Canada as a means of carrying on 
the existing war, it is my duty to speak plainly and decidedly, not 
only because I herein express my own opinions upon the subject, but, 
as I conscientiously believe, the sentiments also of a very great majori- 
ty of that whole section of country in which I have the happiness to 
reside. / say, then, Sir, that I consider the invasion of Canada, as a 
means of carryincj on this toar, as cruel, wanton, senseless, and wicked. 

" You will easily understand, Mr. Speaker, by this very statement 
of opinion, that I am not one of that class of politicians which has for 
so many years predominated in the world, on both sides of the At- 
lantic. You will readily believe that I am not one of those who wor- 
ship in that temple where Condorcet is the high-priest and Machiavel 
the God. With such politicians the end always sanctifies the means, 
— the least possible good to themselves perfectly justifies, according to 
their creed, the inflicting of the greatest possible evil upon others. In 
the judgment of such men, if a corrupt ministry at three thousand 
miles' distance shall have done them an injury, it is an ample cause to 
visit with desolation a peaceable and unoifending race of men, their 
neighbors, who happen to be associated with that ministry by ties of 
mere political dependence. What though these colonies be so remote 
from the sphere of the questions in controversy, that their ruin or 
prosperity could have no possible influence upon the result? What 
though their cities offer no plunder ? What though their conquest 
can yield no glory ? In their ruin there is revenge. And revenge 
to such politicians is the sweetest of all morsels. With such men, 



286 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

neither I, nor the people of that section of country in which I reside, 
hold any communion. There is between us and them no one princi- 
ple of sympathy, either in motive or action. 

" As there is no direct advantage to be hoped from the conquest 
of Canada, so also there is none incidental. Plunder there is none, 
— at least none which will pay the cost of the conquest. Glory 
there is none. Can seven millions of people obtain glory by precipi- 
tating themselves upon half a million, and trampling them into the 
dust ? A giant obtain glory by crushing a pygmy ! That giant 
must have a pygmy's spirit, who could reap or hope glory from such 
an achievement. 

" It is easy enough to make an excuse for any purpose. When a 
victim is destined to be immolated, every hedge presents sticks for the 
sacrifice. The lamb who stands at the mouth of the stream will always 
trouble the water, if you take the account of the wolf who stands at 
the source of it. But show a good to us bearing any proportion to 
the multiplied evils proposed to be visited upon them. There is none. 
Never was there an invasion of any country worse than this in point of 
moral principle, since the invasion of the West Indies by the Buccaneers, 
or that of these United States by Captain Kidd. Indeed, both Kidd 
and the Buccaneers had more apology for their deed than the Ameri- 
can Cabinet. They had at least the hope of plunder. But in this 
case there is not even the poor refuge of cupidity. We have heard 
great lamentations about the disgrace of our arms on the frontier. 
Why, Sir, the disgrace of our arms on the frontier is terrestrial glory in 
comparison with the disgrace of the attempt. The whole atmosphere 
rings with the utterance, from the other side of the House, of this word, 
' Glory, glory,' in connection with this invasion. What glory ? Is 
it the glory of the tiger which lifts his jaws, all foul and bloody from 
the bowels of his victim, and roars for his companions of the wood to 
come and witness his prowess and his spoils ? Such is the glory of 
Genghis Khan and of Bonaparte. Be such glory far, very far from 
my country. Never, never, may it be accursed with such fame. 

' Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. 
Nor in the glistering foil 
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies ; 
But lives and spreads aloft, by those pure eyes 
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove, 
As he pronounces lastly on each deed.' 



SPEECH ON THE INVASION OF CANADA. 287 

" Mr. Speaker, when I contemplate the character and consequences 
of this invasion olf Canada, — when I reflect upon its criminaUty, 
and its danger to the peace and liberty of this once happy country, 
I thank the great Author and Source of all virtue, that, through His 
grace, that section of country in which I have the happiness to reside is 
in so great a degree free from the iniquity of this trangression. I speak 
it with pride, — the people of that section have done what they could 
to vindicate themselves and their children from the burden of this sin. 
That whole section has risen almost as one man for the purpose of 
driving from power, by one great constitutional eflFort, the guilty 
authoi's of this war. If they have failed, it has been, not through the 
want of will or of exertion, but in consequence of the weakness of 
their political power. When in the usual course of Divine Providence, 
who punishes nations as well as individuals. His destroying angel shall 
on this account pass over this country, — and, sooner or later, pass it 
will, — I may be permitted to hope that over New England his hand 
will be stayed. Our souls are not steeped in the blood which has 
been shed in this war; the spirits of the unhappy men who have 
been sent to an untimely audit have borne to the bar of Divine jus- 
tice no accusations against us. 

" This opinion concerning the principle of this invasion of Canada 
is not peculiar to me. Multitudes who approve the war detest it. I 
believe this sentiment is entertained, without distinction of parties, by 
almost all the moral sense, and nine tenths of the intelligence, of the 
whole Northern section of the United States. I know that men from 
that quarter of the country will tell you differently. Stories of a very 
different kind are brought by all those who come trooping to Wash- 
ington for place, appointments, and emoluments, — men who will say 
anything to please the ear, or do anything to please the eye, of Majes- 
ty, for the sake of those fat contracts and gifts which It scatters, — men 
whose fathers, brothers, and cousins are provided for by the depart- 
ments, whose full^rown children are at suck at the money-dlstlUing 
breasts of the treasury, — the little men who sigh after great oflices, — 
those who have judgeships in hand, or judgeships In promise, — toads 
that live upon the vapor of the palace, — that stare and wonder at 
all the fine sights which they see there, and most of all wonder at 
themselves, — how they got there to see them, "iiiese men will tell 
you that New England applauds this invasion. 

"I shall now proceed to the next view I proposed to ta.Ke of this 
project of invading Canada, and consider it in the iignt ji ♦- r/jt'O'w <* 



288 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

obtain an early and Jwnorable peace. It is said, and this Is the whole 
argument in favor of this invasion, in this aspect, that the only way 
to negotiate successfully with Great Britain is to appeal to her fears, 
and raise her terrors for the fate of her Colonies. I shall here say 
nothing concerning the difficulties of executing this scheme, nor about 
the possibility of a deficiency both in men and money. I will not 
dwell on the disgust of all New England, nor on the influence of this 
disgust with respect to your efforts. I will admit, for the present, that 
an army may be raised, and that during the first years it may be sup- 
ported by loans, and that afterwards it will suppoi't itself by bayonets. 
I will admit further, for the sake of argument, that success is possible, 
and that Great Britain realizes the possibility of it. Now, all this 
being admitted, I maintain that the surest of all possible ways to de- 
feat any hope from nef^otiation is the threat of such an invasion and 
an active preparation to execute it. Those must be very young poli- 
ticians, their pin-feathers not yet grown, — and however they may flut- 
ter on this floor, they are not yet fledged for any high or distant flight, — 
who tliink that threats and appealing to fear are the ways of producing 
a disposition to negotiate in Great Britain, or in any other nation which 
understands what it owes to its own safety and honor. No nation can 
yield to threats what it might yield to a sense of interest ; because in 
that case it has no credit for what it grants, and, what is more, loses 
something in point of reputation from the imbecility which concessions 
made under such circumstances indicate. Of all nations in the 
world. Great Britain is the last to yield to considerations of fear and 
terror. The whole history of the British nation is one tissue of facts 
tending to show the spirit with which she meets all attempts to bully 
and browbeat her into measures inconsistent with her interests or 
her policy. No nation ever before made such sacrifices of the present 
to the future. No nation ever built her greatness more systematically 
on the principle of a haughty self-respect which yields nothing to sug- 
gestions of danger, and which never permits either her ability or in- 
clination to maintain her rights to be suspected. In all negotiations, 
therefore, with that power, it may be taken as a certain truth, that 
your chance of failure is just in proportion to the publicity and ob- 
trusiveness of threats and appeals to fear. 

" Surely, if any nation had a claim for liberal treatment from an- 
other, it was the British nation from the American, after the discovery 
of the error of the American government in relation to the repeal of 
the Berlin and Milan Decrees, in November, 1810. In consequence 



SPEECH ON THE INVASION OF CANADA. 289 

of that error; the American Cabinet had ruined numbers of our own 
citizens who .had been caught by the revival of the Non-Intercourse 
law. They had revived that law against Great Britain under circum- 
stances which now appeared to have been fallacious ; and they had 
declared war against her on the supposition that she had refused to 
repeal her Orders in Council after the French Decrees were in fact 
revoked ; whereas it now appears that they were in fact not revoked. 
Surely the knowledge of this error was followed by an instant and 
anxious desire to redress the resulting injury. As the British Orders 
in Council were, in foct, revoked on the knowledge of the existence 
of the French Decree of repeal, surely the American Cabinet at once 
t'xtended the hand of friendship, met the British government half- 
way, stopped all further irritation, and strove to place everything on 
a basis best suited to promote an amicable adjustment. No, Sir, 
nothing of all this occurred. On the contrary, the question of im- 
pressments is made the basis of continuing the war. On this subject 
a studied fiiirness of proposition is preserved, accompanied with sys- 
tematic perseverance in measures of hostility. An armistice was pro- 
posed by them; it was refused by us. It was acceded to by the 
American general on the frontiers ; it was rejected by the Cabinet. 
No consideration of the false allegation on which the war in fact was 
founded, no consideration of the critical and extremely material 
nature to both nations of the subject of ifiipressment, no considera- 
tions of humanity, interposed their influence. They renewed hostil- 
ities. They rushed upon Canada. Nothing would satisfy them but 
blood. The language of their conduct is* that of the giant in the 
legends of infancy : 

' Fee, faw, fum, 
I smell the blood of an Englishman ; 
Dead or alive, I will have some.' 
" Can such men pretend that peace is their object ? Whatever 
may result, the perfect conviction of my mind is that they have no 
such intention, and that, if it come, it is contrary both to their hope 
and expectation. 

" I will now reply to those invitations to ' union,' which have been 
so obtrusively urged upon us. If by this call to union is meant a 
union in a project for the invasion of Canada, or for the invasion of 
East Florida, or for the conquest of any foreign country whatever, 
either as a means of carrying on this war or for any other purpose, I 
answer distinctly, I will unite with no man, nor any body of men, for 
13 ■ 



290 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

any such purposes. I think such projects criminal in the highest de- 
gree, and ruinous to the prosperity of these States. But.il" by this in- 
vitation is meant union in preparation for defence, strictly so called, — 
union in fortifying our seaboard, — union in putting our cities into a 
state of safety, — union in raising such a military force as shall be suf- 
ficient with the local militia in the hands of the constitutional leaders, 
the executives of the States, to give a rational degree of security 
ao'ainst any invasion, — sufficient to defend our frontiers, sufficient to 
awe into silence the Indian tribes within our territories, — union in 
creating such a maritime force as shall command the seas on the 
American coasts, and keep open the intercourse at least between the 
States — if this is meant, I have no hesitation : union on such princi- 
ples you shall have from me cordially, and faithfully. And this, too, 
Sir, without any reference to the state of my opinion in relation to the 
justice or the necessity of this war. Because I well understand such 
to be the condition of man, in a social compact, that he must partake 
of the fate of the society to which he belongs, and must submit to the 
privations and sacrifices its defence requires, notwithstanding these 
may be the result of the vices or crimes of its immediate rulers. But 
there is a great difference between supporting such rulers in plans of 
necessary self-defence, on which the safety of our altars and firesides 
essentially depends, and supporting them in projects of foreign inva- 
sion, and encouraging them in schemes of conquest and ambition, 
which are not only unjust in themselves, but dreadful in their conse- 
quences ; inasmuch as, let the particular project result as it may, the 
general effect must be, according to human view, destructive to our 
own domestic liberties and Constitution. I speak as an individual, 
Sir. For my single self, did I support such projects as are avowed to 
be the object of this bill, I should deem myself a traitor to my coun- 
try. Were I even to aid them by loan, or in any other way, I should 
consider myself a partaker in the guilt of the purpose. But when 
these projects of invasion shall be abandoned, — when men yield up 
schemes which not only openly contemplate the raising of a great 
military force, but also the concentrating them at one point and pla- 
cing them in one hand, — schemes obviously ruinous to the fates of a 
free republic, as they comprehend the means by which such have ever 
heretofore been destroyed ; — when, I say, such schemes shall be aban- 
doned and the wishes of the Cabinet limited to mere defence and 
frontier and maritime protection, there will be no need of calls to 
union. For such objects there is, there can be, but one heart and 
soul in this people. 



SPEECH ON THE INVASION OF CANADA. .291 

" I know, Mr. Speaker, that, while I utter these things, a thousand 
tontrucs and a thousand pens are preparing without doors to over- 
whelm me, if possible, by their pestiferous gall. Already I hear in the 
air, the sound of ' Traitor ! ' — 'British agent!' — 'British gold!' — 
and all those changes of vulgar calumny by which the imaginations of 
the mass of men are affected, and by which they are prevented from 
listening to what is true, and receiving what is reasonable. 

" Mr. Speaker, it well becomes any man standing in the presence 
of such a nation as this to speak of himself seldom ; and such a man 
as I am it becomes to speak of himself not at all, except, indeed, 
when the relations in which he stands to his country are little known, 
and when the assertion of those relations has some connection with 
and may have some influence on interests which it is peculiarly in- 
cumbent upon him to support. 

" Under this sanction, I say, it is not for a man whose ancestors 
have been planted in this country now for almost two centuries, — It 
is not for a man who has a family, and friends, and character, and 
children, and a deep stake in the soil, — it Is not for a man who Is self- 
conscious of being rooted in that soil as deeply and as exclusively as 
the oak which shoots among its rocks, — it Is not for such a man to 
hesitate or swerve a hair's breadth from his country's purpose and true 
interests, because of the yelpings, the bowlings, and snarlings of that 
hungry pack which corrupt men keep directly or Indirectly In pay, 
with the view of hunting down every man who dare develop their pur- 
poses, — a pack composed It is true of some native curs, but for the most 
part of hounds and spaniels of very recent importation, whose backs 
are seared by the lash, and whose necks are sore with the collars of 
their former masters. In fulfilling his duty, the lover of his country 
must often be obliged to breast the shock of calumny. If called to 
that service, he will meet the exigency with the same firmness as, 
should another occasion call, he would breast the shock of battle. 
No, Sir, I am not to be deterred by such apprehensions. May Heaven 
so deal with me and mine as I am true or faithless to the interests of 
this people! May it deal with me according to its just judgments, 
when I fail to bring men and measures to the bar of public opinion ; 
and to expose projects and systems of policy which I realize to be 
ruinous to the peace, prosperity, and liberties of my country ! 

" This leads me, naturally, to the third and last point of view at 
which I proposed to consider this bill, — as a means for the advance- 
ment of the objects of th e personal or local ambition of the members of the 
American Cabinet. With respect to the members of that Cabinet, I 



292 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

may almost literally say, I know nothing of them except as public 
men ; against them I have no personal animosity ; I know little of 
them in private life, — and that little never made me ambitious to 
know more. I look at them as public men wielding powers, and 
putting in operation means and instruments, materially atifecting the 
interests and prospects of the United States. * 

" It is a curious fact, but no less true than curious, that for these 
twelve years past the whole affairs of this country have been man- 
aged, and its fortunes reversed, under the influence of a Cabinet, little 
less than despotic, composed, to all efficient purposes, of two Virginians 
and a foreigner. When I speak of these men as Virginians, I mean 
to cast no odium upon that State, as though it were not entitled to its 
full share of influence in the national councils ; nor, when I refer to 
one of them as being a foreigner, do I intend thereby to suggest any 
connections of a nature unworthy or suspicious. I refer to these cir- 
cumstances as general and undoubted facts which belong to the char- 
acters of the Cabinet, and which cannot fail to be taken into view in 
all estimates of plans and projects, so loftg as man is constituted as he 
is, and so long as the prejudices and principles of childhood never fail 
to influence in different degrees, in even the best men, the course of 
thinking and action of their riper years. 

" I might have said, perhaps with more strict propriety, that it was 
a Cabinet composed of three Virginians and a foreigner,* because once 
in the course of the twelve years there has been a change of one of 
the characters. But, Sir, that change was notoriously matter of form 
rather than substance. As it respects the Cabinet, the principles con- 
tinued the same, the interests the same, the objects at which it 
aimed the same. 

" I said that this Cabinet had been, during these twelve years, little 
less than despotic. This fact also is notorious. During this whole 
period the measures distinctly recommended have been adopted by 
the two Houses of Congress with as much uniformity, and with as little 
modification, too, as the measures of the British Ministry have been 
adopted during the same period by the British Parliament. The con- 
nection between Cabinet councils and Parliamentary acts is just as 
intimate in the one country as in the other. 

" I said that these three men constituted, to all efficient purposes, 

the whole Cabinet. This also is notorious. It is true that during this 

period other individuals have been called into the Cabinet. But they 

were all of them, comparatively, minor men, — such as had no great 

*Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, Mr. Monroe, and Mr. Gallatin. 



SPEECH ON THE INVASION OF CANADA. 293 

\veight either of personal talents or of personal influence to support 
them. They were kept as instruments of the master-spirits ; and 
■when they failed to answer the purpose, or became restive, they were 
sacrificed or provided for. The shades were made to play upon 
the curtain; they entered; they bowed to the audience; they did 
what they were bidden ; they said what was set down for them ; 
when those who pulled the wires saw fit, they passed away. No man 
knew why they entered ; no man knew why they departed ; no 
man could tell whence they came ; no man asked whither they were 
gone. 

" It is natural to inquire what are the projects connected with a 
Cabinet thus composed, and to what ends it is advancing. To answer 
this question, it is necessary to look into the nature and relations of 
things. Here the true criterions of judgment are to be found. Pro- 
fessions are always plausible. Why, Sir, Bonaparte himself is the 
very milk of human kindness ; he is the greatest lover of his species in 
the world ; he would not hurt' a sparrow, if you take his own account of 
the matter. What, then, do nature and the relations of things teach? 
They teach this, — that the great hazard in a government where the 
chief magistracy is elective is fi-om the local amhition of states and the 
personal ambition of individuals. It is no reflection upon any state to 
say that it is ambitious. According to their opportunities and temp- 
tations all states are ambitious. This quality is as much predicable of 
states as of individuals. Indeed, state ambition has its root in the 
same passions of human nature, and derives its strength from the same 
nutriment, as personal ambition. All history shows that such passions 
always exist amongst states combined in confederacies. To deny it is 
to deceive ourselves. It has existed, it does exist, and always must 
exist. In our political relations, as in our personal, we then walk 
most safely when we walk with reference to the actual existence of 
things, — admit the Aveaknesses, and do not hide from ourselves the 
dangers, to which our nature is exposed. Whatever is true, let us 
confess. Nations, as well as individuals, are only safe in proportion as 
they attain self-tnoivledf/e, and regulate their conduct by it. 

" What fact upon this point does our own experience present ? It 
presents this striking one, — that, taking the years for which the Pres- 
idential chair has been filled into the account, out of twenty-eight 
years since our Constitution ivas established, the single State of Virginia 
has fwnished the President for twentyfour years. And, further, it is 
now as distinctly known, and familiarly talked about in this city and 



294 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

vicinity, who is the destined successor of the present President after 
the expiration of his ensuing term, and known that he too is to be a 
Virginian, as it was known and familiarly talked about, during the 
Presidency of Mr. Jeffei-son, that the present President was to be his 
successor. And the former was, and the latter is, a subject of as much 
notoriety, and to human appearance of as much certainty, too, as who 
will be the successor to the British crown is a matter of notoriety in 
that country. To secure this succession, and keep it in the destined 
line, has been, is, and will continue to be the main object of the policy 
of these men. Tliis is the point on which the projects of the Cabinet for 
the three years past have been brought to bear, — that James the First 
should be mofle to continue four years longer. And this, is the point on 
which the projects of the Cabinet will be brought to bear for the three 
years to come, — that James the Second shall be made to succeed, accord' 
ing to the fundamental rescripts of the Monticellian dynasty. 

"The army for the conquest of Canada will be raised, — to be 
commanded by whom? This is the critical question. The answer 
is in every man's mouth. By a member of the American Cabinet, — by 
one of the three, — hy one of that ' trio' who at this moment constitute 
in fact, and who in effect have always constituted, the whole Cabinet. 
And the man who is thus intended for the command of the greatest 
army this New World ever contained, — an army nearly twice as 
great as was, at any time, the regular army of our Revolution, — I say, 
the man who is intended for this great trust is the individual who is 
notoriously the selected candidate for the next Presidency / 

" Mr. Speaker, what an astonishing and alarming state of things is 
this ! Three men who virtually have had the command of tliis na- 
tion for many years have so managed its concerns as to reduce it 
from an unexampled height of prosperity to a state of great depres- 
sion, not to say ruin. They have annihilated its commerce and in- 
volved it in war. And now the result of the whole matter is, that 
they are about to raise an army of fifty-five thousand men, invest one 
of their own body with this most solemn command, and he the man 
who is the destined candidate for the President's chair! What a 
grasp at power is this ! What is there in history equal to it ? Can 
any man doubt what will be the result of this project ? No man can 
beheve that the conquest of Canada will be effected in one campaign. 
It cost the British six years to acquire it, when it was far weaker than 
at present. It cannot be hoped that we can acquire it under three or 



SPEECH ON THE INVASION OF CANADA. 295 

four years. And what then will be the situation of this army and our 
country? Why, then the army will be veteran, and the leader a 
candidate for the Presidency ! And whoever is a candidate for the 
Presidency, with an army of thirty thousand veterans at his heels, will 
not be likely to be troubled with rivals, or to concern himself about 
votes. A President elected under such auspices may be nominally a 
President for years ; but really, if he pleases, a President for life. 

" I know that all this will seem wild and fantastical to very many, 
— perhaps to all who hear me. To my mind it is neither the one nor 
the other. History is full of events less probable, and effected by 
armies far Inferior to that which is proposed to be raised. So far 
from deeming It mere fancy, I consider it absolutely certain, if this 
army be once raised, organized, and enter upon a successful career 
of conquest. The result of such a power as this, intrusted to a single 
individual in the present state of parties and passions in this coun- 
try, no man can anticipate. There Is no other means of absolute 
safety but denying it altogether. 

"I cannot forget, Mr. Speaker, that the sphere In which this 
great army Is destined to operate Is in the neighborhood of that sec- 
tion of country where It is pi-obable, In case the present destructive 
measures be continued in operation, the most unanimous opposition 
will exist to a perpetuation of power in the present bands, or to Its 
transfer to its destined successor. I cannot forget that It has been dis- 
tinctly avowed by a member on this floor, a gentleman from Virginia 
too, (Mr. M. Clay,) and one very likely to know the vIcavs of the Cabi- 
net, that ' one object of this army was to put down opposition.' 

" Sir, the greatness of this project, and Its consequences, over- 
wlielm my mind. *l know very well to what obloquy I expose myself 
by this development. I know that it Is always an unpardonable sin to 
I)ull the veil from the party deities of the day ; and that It Is of a na- 
ture not to be forgiven either by them or their worshippers. I have 
not willingly, nor without long reflection, taken upon myself this re- 
sponsibility. But it has been forced upon me by an imperious sense of 
duty. If the people of the Northern and Eastern States are destined 
to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to men who know nothing 
about their interests, and care nothing about them, I am clear of the 
great transgression. If, in common with their countrymen, my chil- 
dren are destined to be slaves, and to yoke In with negroes chained 
to the car of a Southern master, they at least shall have this sweet 
consciousness as the consolation of their condition, — they shall be 
able to say, ' Our fathkr was guiltless of these chains.'" 



296 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Of this speech, and of the replies it called forth, Mr. Quincy 
thus speaks : — 

" The plainness and directness of this attack were of such a nature, 
that, although all the minor herd of debaters poured out their wrath 
upon my head, it was deemed important enough that the untamed 
fero'.'ious tongue of Henry Clay should be detailed to the service of 
resj onding to and prostrating the assailant. Accordingly, the House 
was resolved into a Committee of the Whole, and Speaker Clay de- 
scended from the chair to the floor, for the purpose, as one of his 
friends informed me, of reducing me to (he alternative of a duel or dis- 
gi-ace. He consequently on this occasion exceeded himself in his 
characteristic power of insolent vituperation of his ojjponent, and un- 
limited laudation of the Administration. 

"I do not wonder at the rage of these men. The truth is, I thrust 
the spear directly between the joints of the harness. I made a reply 
of about ten sentences, which my friends say was the best I ever made. 
I suppose the charm lay in its brevity. The palace and all its retain- 
ers are in a most tremendous rage, and if they had a Baltimore mob 
at command, I have no doubt they would show their indignation in a 
way perfectly in unison with their characters. I laid the mysteries of 
their power open to public inspection, and when you throw light upon 
an owl's nest, there is nothing like the agitation of the whole family." 

The Democratic speakers who followed Mr. Quincy for the 
two or three days after the delivery of his speech — Mr. Rhea* 
and Mr. Grundy f of Tennessee, Mr. Widgery J of the District 
of Maine, and Mr. Archer § of Maryland — devoted the chief of 
their speeches to attacks upon him with as much abusive skill as 
they had at command. But their puny invectives were thrown 
into obscurity by the philippic which Mr. Clay descended from 

* 'ohn Rhea, Member of Congress from Tennessee, 1803 to 1815, and 1817 to 
1823. 

t F?lix Grundy, born, 1770; in public life all his days, either in Tennessee 
or at Washington; Member of Congress, 1811 to 1814; Senator, 1829 to 1838; 
appointed Attorney-General by President Van Buren in 1838; resigned in 1840, 
and i-e-elected Senator; died the same year. 

} William Widgery, born in Philadelphia, 1753; was a privateersman dur- 
ing the Revolution, and afterwards settled in Maine; was often in the Genera, 
Court; Member of Congress from 1811 to 1813; died, 1822. 

§ Stephenson Archer, Member of Congress, 1811 to 1817, and 1819 to 1821. 



ME. CLAY'S DIATRIBE. 297 

the chair to deliver on the 8th of January. This celebrated 
speech occupied the chief of two days, and was not finished until 
the third. The following extracts are all for which I can make 
room ; but they contain the cream of his diatribe. The speech 
as reported is obviously much curtailed, and they that heai-d it 
testified that, in its modified form, as prepared for the press, it is 
far less bitter and abusive than as it fell from the speaker's lips. 

" Next to the notice which the Opposition has found itself called 
upon to bestow upon the French Emperor, a distinguished citizen of 
Virginia, formerly President of the United States, has never for a 
moment failed to receive their kindest and most respectful attention. 
An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Quincy), of whom, 
I am sorry to say, it becomes necessary for me in the course of my 
remarks to take some notice, has alluded to him in a remarkable ' 
manner. Neither his retirement from public office, his eminent ser- 
vices, nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot from the coarse 
assaults of party malevolence. No, Sir. In 1801, he snatched from 
the rude hands of usurpation the violated Constitution of his country, 
and that is his crime. He preserved that instrument in form and sub- 
stance and spirit, a precious inheritance for generations to come, and 
for this he can never be forgiven. How impotent is party rage direct- 
ed against him ! He is not more elevated by his lofty residence upon 
the summit of his own favorite mountain, than he is lifted by the 
serenity of his mind, and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above 
the malignant passions and the turmoils of the day. No ; his own be- 
loved Monticello is not less moved by the storms that beat against its 
sides, than he hears with composure (if he hears at all) the bowlings 
of the whole British pack, set loose from the Essex kennel ! When 
the gentleman to whom I have been compelled to allude shall have 
mingled his dust with that of his abused ancestors, — when he shall be 
consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives at all, shall live only in the treason- 
able annals of a certain junto, — the name of Jefferson will be hailed 
as the second founder of the liberties of this people, and the period of 
his Administration will be looked back to as one of the happiest and 
brightest epochs in American history. I beg the gentleman's pardon ; 
he has secured to himself a more imperishable fame. I think ."t was 
about this time four years ago, that the gentleman submitted to the 
House of Representatives an Initiative proposition for an Impeachment 
of Mr. Jefferson. The House condescended to consider it. The 
gentleman debated It with his usual temper, moderation, and urbanity. 
13* 



298 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

The House decided it in the most solemn manner ; and, although the 
gentleman had somehow obtained a second, the final vote stood one 
for the proposition, one hundred and seventeen against it ! The same 
historic page that transmitted to posterity the virtues and the glory 
of Henry the Great of France, for their admiration and example, has 
preserved the infamous name of the fanatic assassin of that excellent 
monarch. The same sacred pen that portrayed the sufferings and 
crucifixion of the Saviour of mankind has recorded, for universal 
execration, the name of him who was guilty, not of betraying his 
country, but (a kindred crime) of betraying his God ! 

" But, Sir, I will quit this unpleasant subject. I will turn from one 
whom no sense of decency or propriety could restrain from soiling the 
carpet on which he treads, to gentlemen who have not forgotten what 
is due to themselves, the place in which we are assembled, nor to those 
by whom they are opposed. 

" I am sensible, Mr. Chairman, that some part of the debate to 
which this bill has given rise has been attended by circumstances 
much to be regretted, not usual in this House, and of which it is to hi 
hoped there will be no repetition. The gentleman from Boston had 
so absolved himself from every rule of decorum and propriety, had so 
outraged all decency, that I have found it impossible to suppress the 
feelings excited on the occasion. His colleague, whom 1 had the 
honor to follow (Mr. Wheaton), whatever else he might not have proved 
in his very learned, ingenious, and original exposition of the powers 
of this govermnent, — an exposition in which he has sought, where 
nobody before has looked, and nobody after him will examine, for a 
grant of our powers, the preamble to the Constitution, — has clearly 
shown, to the satisfaction of all who heard him, that the power is con- 
ferred of defensive war. I claim the benefit of a similar principle, in 
behalf of my political friends, against the gentleman from Boston. I 
demand only the exercise of the right of repulsion. No one is more 
anxious than I am to preserve the dignity and liberaUty of debate ; 
no member more responsible for its abuse. And If, on this occasion, 
its just limits have been violated, let him who has been the unpro- 
voked cause appropriate to himself exclusively the consequences." 

As soon as Mr. Clay had taken his seat, Mr. Quincy rose and 
spoke as follows. These few words were all the notice he saw 
fit to bestow on the personal attacks of Mi*. Clay or of the other 



LACONIC REJOINDER. 299 

Democratic speakers who preceded and followed him in the de- 
bate on this bill. 

" Mr. Chairman, I do not rise to reply to the honorable the Speaker, 
who, it seems, has descended from the Chair in order to do that which 
no other member of this House was either willing to undertake or was 
deemed competent to perform. I should blush for myself and for the 
good and wise, the only portion of this community of whose applause 
I am ambitious, could I deem a reply necessary. As a public man, I 
never expect, I never wish, any other or further influence than what 
results from distinct principles, and those principles emanating from 
known or proved facts. He who refutes those principles, or disproves 
those facts, has my honor. He who misrepresents or mistakes either 
the one or the other has my pity or my contempt, according to the pro- 
portion of imbecility of head or corruption of heart which enters into 
the cause of such mistake or misrepresentation. I cannot put myself 
on the level of retort. That, in my observations, I did not pass the 
fair limits of parliamentary discussion is obvious from this, — that the 
honorable the Speaker himself, then presiding in this House, neither 
stopped me himself, nor permitted others to do it when it was attempt- 
ed. So far as respects any personal reflections which have fallen from 
the honoi-able the Speaker, or may fall from other members, they have 
their hberty of speech. Such as my reputation was before Billings- 
gate opened its flood-gates, such it will remain after the odious flood 
shall have passed by." 

This brief and pithy summing up of the conclusion of the 
whole matter, as far as he was concerned, was looked upon by 
Mr. Quincy's friends at the time as having been done in the best 
taste and in the most effectual manner, and I have no fear that 
their judgment will be reversed by history or posterity. Of this 
coutemjiorary opinion he received many gratifying assurances 
which would have confirmed his own judgment as to the fitness 
of his course had confirmation been necessary. On the subject 
of Mr. Clay's avowed purpose of reducing him to the alternative 
of a duel or disgrace, he wrote as follows to his wife, immediately 
after this passage at arms was over, for the purpose of relieving 
her from any anxiety on the subject: — 

" As it respects the Southern and "Western men, they shall learn 
from me, if from no one else, that they are not to set up standards of 



300 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

duty or decorum for my part of the country. Wlaile I have tongue or 
pen, the ignorant part of the nation shall not assume to itself with im- 
punity to lord it over the intelligent, nor the vicious over the virtuous. 
As to my personal safety, that is the last thing I think of I am se- 
cured by my place in some measure, — more by my perfect sense of 
performed duty. Bleecker called me up out of bed a fortnight ago to 
tell me he heard at Georgetown there was some intention of a per- 
sonal attack on me by some of the friends of the palace. I laughed 
at him. The storm was mere wind, as the event proved. They know 
their interest too well to resort to such means, and should they do it, 
I should not regret it on a public account. If men are not personally 
safe in this city who come here to perform their duty, it ought to be 
known, and I am as willing to have the proof made on me as on any 
other. But the truth is, there has not been one moment of real cause 
of such apprehension, nor should I have recurred to it had vou not 
touched on the subject." 

On the 26th of January he wrote : — 

" The storm has subsided, and a most perfect calm is preserved on 
the floor. On reading my speech, I suspect the palace gentry find 
nothing so very violent and exceptionable in point of allusion and ex- 
pression as they thought on its delivery ; and there are so many truths, 
that they are willing to let it alone. My friends seem entirely grati- 
fied. Elisha R. Potter of Rhode Island said that ' it was the very 
thing. But,' added he, ' Quincy, as the old woman said of White- 
field, there is no jirinting the manner.' " 

It was one of the characteristics of my father's temperament, 
that, though most sensitive to everything that might affect his 
true honor and real reputation, he was absolutely insensible to 
assaults made upon him, either by the press or in Congress, 
which he knew were not deserved. They seemed hardly to ar- 
rest his attention at the time, and made no permanent impression 
upon his mind. All the shafts, shaped with skill and tipped with 
malice, which the Administration orators, with Mr. Clay at their 
head, poured upon him in such showers, glanced off from his im- 
penetrable indifference like native arrows from the hide of the 
armed rhinoceros. No one was ever more scrupulously anxious 
to make sure that his words and actions, as a public man, were 
exactly what they should be, and none more unaffectedly indiffer- 



LATER RELATIONS WITH MR. CLAY. 301 

ent as to what was thought or said about the one or the other by 
friend or foe. As to Mr. Clay's share in this vain attempt to put 
him down, there is reason for believing that he was not alto- 
gether proud of it, after the passions of the time had cooled, 
and the occasion for the violence had passed away. In the 
last year of President John Quincy Adams's administration, 
during the winter of 1828-29, my father made his only visit to 
Washington after leaving Congress. According to the etiquette 
of the place, he made calls of ceremony upon all the mem- 
bers of the Cabinet, and among them he left his card at Mr. 
Clay's door. His visits were duly returned by all the other min- 
isters ; but nothing was heard of the Secretary of State. My 
father took it for granted that it was the memory of the old 
grudge that made Mr. Clay indisposed to meet him, even after 
the lapse of sixteen years, and thought no more about the matter. 
It happened, however, that the visiting-card had gone awry, and 
had never been received, which made Mr. Clay entertain pre- 
cisely the same opinion as to my father's feelings towards him- 
self. After the adjournment of Congress, a common friend (I 
think it was Mr. Everett) waited upon my father with an ex- 
planatory message from Mr. Clay, such as made a personal ac- 
quaintance possible between them. As the message was a verbal 
one, I have no means o£ giving its terms ; but its substance as 
well as its form was satisfactory, and thenceforward bygones 
were bygones between the old antagonists. A few years later, 
in the autumn of 1833, Mr. Clay made a visit to Boston, on 
which occasion my father called upon him, and received him at 
the President's house in Cambridge, and introduced him officially 
to the students, who were assembled in the library for the pur- 
pose. He was never, however, an admirer of the personal 
character of Mr. Clay, nor a follower of his school of political 
economy. Though he took no active part in politics during the 
years when the American Sy.^tem was in question, he did not be- 
liev3 in it, and held to the last to the old Federal doctrine of 
free trade as the basis of national prosperity. 

During the remainder of the session Mr. Quincy took part in 
the debates on all questions of national importance ; but he only 



802 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

spoke twice at much length, — on the bill for classifying the mili- 
tia, and on that for prohibiting the employment of foreign seamen 
on public and private vessels. The report of the first of these 
speeches is very meagre. He opposed the bill mainly on the 
ground that it proposed to make the mihtia tlie basis of a stand- 
ing army, by the introduction of a system analogous to the 
French conscription. It passed the House, but was defeated or 
dropped in the Senate. The other bill, he wrote to his wife, was 
a mere tub to the whale, to make the Northern people believe 
that there was an inclination towards peace on the part of the 
Administration, shown in this plan for removing the occasion 
for search and impressment, and thus diminish the effect on the 
spring elections of Northern hatred of the war. The Federal- 
ists were especially urged to support the measure on the ground 
of its consistency with the stand they had always taken as to 
this matter. ]\Ir. Quincy showed that there was no pretence 
for this assertion, and affirmed that the provisions of the bill were 
such as " no man in the nation ever advocated, or ever conceived 
as a scheme of practical policy, until it burst upon the astonished 
vision of the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Grundy)." The 
charge of inconsistency he retorted on the Democrats, urging 
that this bill was a direct contradiction of the assumptions on 
which they had resisted the right of search and of impressment 
even to the drawing of the sword. On this point he said : — 

" Sir, if I wished to press far into the discussion of this bill, which 
I do not, I would ask, What has become of that great doctrine of the 
right of expatriation, so obtrusively and clamorously maintained, from 
the first establishment of our national government down to the pres- 
ent day, by the patrons and authors of this bill, their friends and sup- 
porters ? Are all those choice topics of declamation to be aban- 
doned ? Are they forgotten by gentlemen on the other side of the 
House ? If they are, will they be forgotten by this people ? This 
bill proceeds upon the principle that the right of expatriation does 
not exist in the subjects of foreign governments. For, if it does exist, 
then such foreign government has no right to reclaim them, and we 
have no right to drive them home. The bill abjures this right of ex- 
patriation, and, in doing this, cuts up by the roots, not only the claim 
to protection of the individuals whom it contemplates to force back to 



FELIX GRUNDY AND HIS CONSTITUENTS. 303 

the seivice of their respective sovereigns, but also your whole right 
to protect, beyond the limits of your local jurisdiction, even your nat- 
uralized citizens It is extraordinary that men who have been, 

all their lives long, perfect knights-errant in favor of distressed foreign- 
ers, — who have set their spears in rest, and gone tilting all over the 
world in defence of oppressed humanity, — who have been inviting 
it to our shores with both hands, — should all at once turn round and 
pretend to be about to send them all home again, and leave them to 
the mercy of ancient systems and of their former masters. 

" But this is not all. This great right of expatriation, which the 
advocates of this bill and their political friends have been maintaining 
these twenty years, in favor of all the world, is now denied by the bill 
to exist, even in our own citizens. The reciprocity of the bill consists 
in this, — that these, our citizens, should be forced home, according to 
the obligations of their natural allegiance. For on this principle 
alone have we a right to claim their return. Thus strange and mys- 
terious is both the character and parliamentary course of this bill. 
.... For my part, I consider the bill as no pacific measure. Its true 
purpose is to give a peace aspect to the time, — to clear the atmos- 
phere for a moment, so that the money-gudgeons may bite sharp at 
the treasury hook. I view it as a scheme intended to deceive the 
people, — to buoy them up with false hopes of peace, when the real 
intention is to continue the war. Under this belief it shall have no 
support from me." 

Tliis was Mr. Quincy's last speech in Congress. Mr. Grundy 
replied to the speech with sufficient asperity, and afterwards held 
the following conversation with ray father, as described in a 
letter to my mother of the 16th of February, 1813. 

" Concerning Grundy's asperity, it seems I have not yet received 
the whole. He is a perfect political jockey, and as good-humored as 
he is cunning. He said to me yesterday, ' Quincy, I thought I had 
abused you enough, but I find it will not do.' — ' Why, what is the 
matter now ? I do not mean to speak again.' — ' No matter ; by 
heavens, I must give you another thrashing.' — ' Why so ? ' — ' Why, 

the truth is, a d d fellow has set up against me in my district, — 

a perfect Jacobin, as much worse than I am as worse can be. Now, 
except Tim Pickering, there is not a man in the United States so 
perfectly hated by the people of my district as yourself. You must 

therefore excuse me. By G , I must abuse you, or I shall never 

get re-elected. I will do it, however, genteelly. / will not do it as 



304 LIFE OF JOSTAII QUINGY. 

(Jial (I d fool of a Chvj did it, — xtrikc so hard ok to Jnirt myself. 

But abuse voii I must. You understand. I mean to be friends not- 

withstandin<j;. By G I mean to be in Congress again, and must 

use the means.' 

" I give you this anecdote because it is characteristic, and because it 
is iUustrative of men, manners, and motives." 

]\Iy mother appears to have written to my father to know liow 
it happeiied that l\aiuU)lpli, who had paid high compliments, in 
one of his speeches, to JNIr. Bleeeker and INIr. Eniott of New 
York, both of thcin Federalists of the lirst water, had passed 
himself over in utter silence. To this inquiry he made this 
wise and characteristic reply : — 

" llanilol|)li and I are upon friendly and confidential terms, as far 
as it is possible to be so witli a man so wayward and vei-salile in his 
fi'iendsliips ami enmities as he has shown himself. With such a man 
one cannot leel himself wholly at ease. As to his studied eom[)liments 
to Bleecker and Emott, and his silence with regard to me, — of which 
[Isaac P.] Davis spoke, — I never troubled myself to inijuire the rea- 
son, or noticed the fact, as I never deemed him either the dispenser 
of fame or the criterion of character. I am not in the habit of per- 
mitting envy or jealousy in myself, or suspecting it in others. If there 
be any disposition in him not to do justice to me, of which I see no 
evidence, it is cpiite as likely to be the result of local politics as of any 
other cause. The truth is, that next to Timothy Pickering my name 
is the most obnoxious in the Southern States, and it would not aid 
Ranilolph on the hustings to have it said or shown that he had been 
paying compliments to so obnoxious a character." 

In another letter to my mother, he says, speaking of Ran- 
dolph : — 

" As you seem to think John Randolph not inclined to be just to 
nie, I will tell you an anecdote which occurred yesterday. He was 
sitting by the fire in the Capitol, and I saiil to him, ' Kandolph, have 
you any news from Virginia ?' 'Yes,* said he, very significantly, and 
put a letter into my hands from a Mr. Leigh, a gentleman of ilistinc- 
tion there, who, in acknowledging the receipt of my speech from him, 
had expressed himself upon it in a style very far too flattering for me 
to repeat. Randolph evidently seemed gratified, although he did not 
eay a word, except, ' That man's opinion w worth somethitig, Qtiincy.' 



IIARMANUS BLKKCKER. 305 

"I mention tliiH l)y way of justice to Iiim. On tlils topic, IJIccckcr 
showed me a letter from Cliiel" JiiHtieci Kent of New York, wlioHe ap- 
probation of my sptseeh was uneijuivoeal, and wlio desIrcMl liini to 
express his thanks to nie for my bohiiuiss, truth, ete., etc. So there is 
a babmce for tlic scurrility to which 1 have been Hiibji^etetl." 

The name of Mr. BU^ockor rciiiiiids me that I should (h) my 
father's life less than jiiHlice if I faihid to speak of" \\u'. frierKlsliip 
which S|»ran<ij up between himself and tiiat (excellent gentleman 
during the 'l'\v(dfth Congress. Ilarniainis HIeeeker — best and 
most silent of mc^i ! — ^ was of pure Dutch des(U!nt, and was one 
of the few of their nic,(! who could sjx'ak the language; of the 
founders of New Netherland. J lis piddic, life, I bcliev*^ was 
limitiul to this one Congress, with the excisption of a brief dipio- 
matie service of whieh T shall speak presently. He was a law- 
yer by profession, — wise, learned, sagaeious, the friend as well 
as the counsellor of his clients. " He a^ked oidy how best to 
serve tin; poor," writes one of his inimcrous pupils, — among 
wiiom were numljered many of the most eminent men of New 
York, — '-and it was a sight worlli siM^ing to witness his consul- 
tations with the fjuaint old peoph; of Albany, when; family sor- 
rows or fortune's smile or frown were all talked ov(!r in the good 
old langnagf! of tin; Netherlands." He made no [(retensions to 
forensic, ehxpience ; but he was li.-teiKid to by courts and juries 
with the respectful attention due to his knowledge, experience, 
and high charactcjr. No man, I am safe to say, ev(!r had more 
friends or fewer enemies. My father ent(!rtainetl for Mr. 
Ble(!cker a friendship as warm as it was sincere, and his regard 
was reciprocated with feelings of cordial affection and admira- 
tion. Mr. Bleecker made frequent visits to liostori, where ho 
was always a welcome guest at many of the best houses, and 
at none more welcome than our own. In this way the old in- 
timacy was kept alive, and made an exception to almost all my 
father's Wasliington friendshi[)s, whieh too generally had faded 
out through the influences of time and 8e[)aration. 

I have said that Mr. Bleecker was the most silent, as well as 
the best of men. But this description must be taken with many 
grains of allowance. In general society he was eminently "a 



306 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

good listener," such as Dr. Johnson might have loved, and he 
used to remind me of that Englishman some French writer of 
the last century tells of, who affirmed that speaking spoiled con- 
versation, — " que parler c'est gdter la conversation." But when 
drawn out, or impelled to speak, he expressed him-elf, deliberate- 
ly indeed and compactly, but in exact and well-chosen language, 
and always wisely and to the point. 

Air. Bleecker was appointed, in 1839, Minister to Holland, by 
President Van Buren, whose personal friend he was, and who 
seems, in defiance of the precedents of our diplomacy, to have 
regarded his peculiar fitness for the post, and especially his 
speaking the language of the court to which he was accredited, 
as no insuperable objection to the nomination. He made and 
left a most favorable impression on the court and society of the 
Hague, and, it may well be believed, had a thorough enjoyment 
of his official residence in the land of his ancestors. When he 
was first presented at court, the king said to him, " Sir, you 
speak better Dutch than we do in Holland ! " which was no 
mere compliment, but a fact due to his speaking the classical 
Dutch of literature, untainted by the conversational corruptions 
of later times. Mr. Bleecker had lived a bachelor up to the 
time of his mission to the Dutch Court. Before his return, how- 
ever, he had reformed that one error of his life by marrying a 
young Dutch lady, the daughter of a gentleman of distinction 
at the Hague, holding an important official position there, whose 
society gave a niew happiness to the remainder of his life. He 
died at Albany in 1849, at the age of seventy years. 

On the 4th of March, 1813, my father quitted Washington 
never to return to it in a public character. To use his own lan- 
guage : — 

" I left Washington with the feelings of a man quitting Tadmor in 
the Wilderness, ' where creeping things had possession of the palace, 
and foxes looked out of the windows,' and sought refuge in home, and 
in the bosom of my family ; with children dear to me as my heart's 
blood, with a wife wise, faithful, and beloved, with whom it was my 
destiny, by the will of Heaven, to pass fifty-three years in a felicity 
attained by few, surpassed by none." 



HIS RETIREMENT FROM CONGRESS. 807 

CHAPTER XIII. 

1813. 

Mr. Quincy's Retikement from Congress. — Oratiox before the Wash- 
ington Benevolent Society. — In the State Senate. — Remon- 
strance AGAINST the War. — LOUISIANA RESOLUTIONS. — The LaW- 

KENCE Resolutions. — Seth Sprague. — Discontents in New England. 
— Matthew Lyon. — Letters of John Randolph. 

MR. QUINCY was barely forty-one years old when he thus 
withdrew, of his own free choice, from parliamentary life, 
after eight years of most assiduous service. There is no doubt 
that he might have remained in Congress for a much longer time 
had such been his wish, so decided a majority did the Federal 
party command in Boston, and so well content were they, as a 
body, with his course as their representative. His reasons for 
refusing to remain in Congress I have already given in his own 
words. That his deliberate judgment, in view of all the public 
and private reasons which led him to withdraw at this time from 
the scene of national politics, remained substantially unchanged, 
is doubtless true. But there were times when, in private conver- 
sation, he would seem to be a little shaken as to the wisdom of 
his course in thus leaving the national Legislature in the very 
prime of his life. He had prepared himself most laboriously 
and conscientiously for his Congressional duties, and he had so 
performed them as to gain the approbation of his constituents 
and to make himself one of the most prominent public men 
of his time. It is true that he had not succeeded in defeating 
the worst measures of the dominant party, nor even in materi- 
ally modifying them ; but to such success he could hardly have 
looked forward when he entered on his public life. His time, 
however, was by no means wasted, nor his labor lost. The stern 
remonstrance, the sharp rebuke, the keen sarcasm, with which he 
encountered the measures of the Administration, and exposed the 
motives which inspired them, helped to keep alive and make 



808 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

intelligent the opposition which in some degree held it in check, 
and in some cases caused it to change its course. Moreover, he 
had very early, as we have seen, discerned the insidious nature 
of the element of slavery in our institutions, — its disastrous in- 
fluence upon the prosperity of the Noith, and its inevitable ten- 
dency to grow and strengthen itself, unless speedily and effectually 
checked. — and it was this feeling that pervaded and gave unity 
to his Congressional action. Perhaps no man did more than he 
to impress upon the general mind of New England the real 
source of the calamity of her people, and to implant the germs 
of that moral, religious, and political hostility to slavery which 
afterwards grew to such prevailing strength. It was natural 
enough that he should have sometimes felt, in later years, that he 
might have remained in Congress, through the years that the 
war with England lasted, advantageously to his country, and 
honorably to himself. And it would have been no unworthy 
ending of his Congressional career, could it have been rounded 
by a share in the glorious, though ineffectual struggle to stay the 
tide of slavery at the frontier of Missouri in 1820. But he 
judged otherwise at the time ; and it would have made no prac- 
tical difference in the result. He could not have changed or 
delayed the course of events, the direction of which he had so 
clearly foreseen and so distinctly predicted. 

Almost immediately upon his return home, after taking his 
final leave of Congress, he had an opportunity of giving em- 
phatic utterance to his sense of these growing dangers. The 
Washington Benevolent Society of Boston, the chief of an affilia- 
tion of organizations of that name extending tlirough the State, 
partly charitable but mainly political, invited him to deliver an 
oration before them on the anniversary of Washington's first 
inauguration as President, the 30th of April, 1789. This asso- 
ciation celebrated its feast-day with all the pomp and circum- 
stance it could command, — a military escort, a procession, 
banners with appropriate devices, an oration, and appropriate 
exercises in the Old South Church. One especial feature of 
this procession was a company of school-boy Federalists, to the 
number of two hundred and fifty, dressed uniformly in blue and 



ORATION BEFORE WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY'. 309 

white, with Washington's Farewell Address, in red morocco, 
hanging round tlieir necks, and with his gorget, which he had 
worn in the Old French War, attached to their banner. This 
gorget, the same which may be seen depicted in the portrait 
of Washington prefixed to the first volume of Sparks's Life, 
had been given to Mr. Quincy for this society by Mrs. Peter 
of Georgetown, D. C, a granddaughter of Mrs. Washington. It 
bears the arms of the Colony of Virginia, and has attached to 
it the very ribbon by which it hung round his neck on the day 
of Braddock's defeat. At the time of the dissolution of the 
society, soon after the peace of 1815, this interesting relic was 
presented by them to Mr. Quincy, and is still in the possession 
of the family. 

Mr. Quincy's oration was a clear and able, if not exactly 
a dispassionate, exposition of the bearings of the slave ratio 
of representation upon the relative proportions of the political 
power of the different sections of the country. He showed 
by statistics the anomalous results which had flowed from 
this concession to slavery, multiplied and hastened by the an- 
nexation of foreign territory, to be erected into States as fast as 
they were needed to confirm the dominion of the slave-holders. 
" The new States govern the old, the unsettled the settled ; the 
influences of emigrants prevail over those of the ancient natives ; 
a black population overbalances the white ; from woods and 
lakes and desert wildernesses legislators issue, controlling the 
destinies of a seaboard people, paralyzing all their interests and 
darkening all their prospects." He warned the people of INIassa- 
chusetts that the cause of their commercial distresses lay deeper 
than embargo or war, and that the mere return of free trade and 
of peace would not cure the evils under which they suffered. 
The;e would be renewed in fresh forms as long as the control of 
the government was permitted to remain in the hands of the old 
Slave States and those to be carved out of the new territory ac- 
v|uired for this political purpose in flagrant violation of the Con- 
stitution. Undoubtedly passages in this oration, as well as in 
his famous Speech on the Admission of Louisiana, might be 
quoted by the advocates of the la e Rebellion, in this country 



810 LIFE OF JOSIAH QljINCY. 

and in England, who have claimed for him the distinction of 
having been the original Secessionist, in confirmation of their 
assertion. But I think the dispassionate reader of the one, as 
well as of the other, will note a wide difference between the 
ground taken by him and that occupied by the oracles of the Re- 
bellion, as I have already attempted to point out. It was the 
I'ight of revolution that he vindicated, and the prerogative of the 
citizens to judge, at their own peril, when the injuries they en- 
dured justified a resort to that ultimate and supreme right. He 
really stood upon the ground of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, which was sophistically claimed as their own by the pro- 
moters of the slave-holding rebellion, and by its defenders on 
both sides of the Atlantic. If this were treason, he was a traitor 
to the end of his days, as I have said before, for he lived and 
died in this political faith. But I have no apprehensions as to 
the judgment which posterity will pass upon him as a statesman 
and a patriot, after reading his words in the light of the events 
which provoked, and of those which have justified them. I have 
room only for brief extracts from this oration ; but I have con- 
scientiously endeavored to select what its mislikers at the time 
would have considered its worst passages. 

" Whenever the rulers of a nation become the mere heads of a 
party, the last and least consideration with them is the good of the 
people. How to secure their power, — how to manage the elections, — 
who is the fittest tool, — who will run the fastest, go the farthest, and 
hold out the longest for the least wages of corruption, — are the only 
inquiries. To give muscle and durability to their influence is the 
single end of their political system. For this, British antipathies are 
stimulated ; for this, British injuries are magnified ; for this, French 
affections are cultivated, and French insults and injuries palliated or 
goncealed ; for this, we had restriction ; for this, embargo ; for this, 
we have war ; for this, war shall be continued ; and, if peace come, 
for this, peace shall be concluded. For unprincipled ambition in 
power effects not even public good, except from corrupt motives. 

" In treating of our condition, I shall not waste the hour in idle 
regrets oi vain criminations. The hand of ruin is upon us and upon 
our citiesi The deep and ancient root of the prosperity of Massachu- 



ORATION BEFORE WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. 311 

setts is withering. Our commerce, navigation, and fisheries are gone. 
A whirlwind from the West is passing over those massy pillars of our 
greatness, and they are already prostrate. Lamentation and despair 
suit not the condition of fi-eemen, — least of all, of the freemen of 
Massachusetts. To them it belongs to be mindful of the character of 
their ancestors, — men keen to discern and resolute to perform their 
duties, — generous spirits, whom power could not tempt, nor fraud 
ensnai-e, nor force subdue. The descendants of such men ought to 
blush at being satisfied with shuffling along from one mode of oppres- 
sion to another, and from one stage of corruption to another; each 
individual happy, If his head escapes the bolt intended for the general 
ruin ; content with life and precarious enjoyment to-day and to-mor- 
row, careless of the long extent of time which is to come afterward. 
The grave will soon close upon us and our vain joys and vainer antici- 
pations. You are fathers. What political inheritance do you leave 
to your children ? Where lie the sources of the evils which we suf- 
fer ? What are the remedies ? What are our duties ? 

" The sources of our sufferings lie deeper than embargo or war, 
great as are both these evils. Washington foresaw and foretold that 
these men ' would be satisfied with nothing short of a change in our 
political system.' * But Washington liimself did not foresee, nor could 
any human eye have foreseen, the change which in so short a space 
of time has been made in the internal relations of this country ; much 
less could he have foreseen the change which artful construction and 
interested usurpation have made in the principles of our Constitution. 

" It Is a notorious fact, that, partly by the operation of the slave 
ratio In the Constitution, and partly by the unexampled emigrations 
into the West, the proportions of political power among the States of 
tills country have changed since the adoption of the Federal Constitu- 
tion in a degree as unanticipated as the result Is eventful and ominous. 
On the proportion of Its political power, In an association like ours, 
does the safety of every State Avhich is a member of It depend. And 
reason teaches, and safety requires, that this proportion should have 
some reference to the nature and greatness of its interests. 

" A free people have a right, and it is their duty, to inquire into 
the securities they possess for their liberties and properties ; and to see 

* Marshall's Life of Washington, Vol. V. p. 34 of the notes. 



312 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

whether they be such as ought to give content to wise and virtuoua 
minds. There is nothing mysterious in the fabric of our freedom. 
There is no divine right of Kings, or Presidents, or Congresses, in the 
whole compound. By the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Mas- 
sachusetts it is made our duty frequently to resort to first principles. 
We have not only the right to examine the top and the shait of the 
column of our liberties, but if it appear out of plumb, or out of level, 
it is made our duty to look at the corner-stones and see if they are not 
falling away. I know that, when these topics are touched, all the 
craftsmen — those who make profit by the shrines and are growing fat 
on the ofial of the sacrifices — are in an uproar, and run about, crying, 
' The Constitution is in danger. These things lead to a dissolution of 
the Union. Great is Diana of the Epheslans ! ' What? Are we not 
freemen ? If to any individual the result of our political Institutions 
appear incompatible with general or particular safety, shall he not 
speak ? How, then, can the evils which we feel, or fear, be remedied 
or prevented ? How else can we bring our existing Constitution to 
that test of experience which Washington has tohl us is ' the surest 
standard of its real tendency ' ? In my judgment, concealment in 
such case is not so much an error as a crime. For a crime it is for 
a citizen, in a free country, to see, or believe that he sees, distinct 
dangers surrounding the commonwealth and be silent concerning 
them, either through fear of personal responsibility, or In subserviency 
to the apathy or the prejudices of the times. 

" The degree in which the proportions of political power among the 
States of this Union have been changed, by time and usurpation, 
since the adoption of the Constitution, admits of a very varied and 
extensive illustration. I shall confine myself to the statement of one 
or two facts, rather by way of indicating the state of things than 
describing it. This cannot be done, in all its relations, within the 
limits of the present occasion. 

" The States of Virginia and Georgia together possess a white popu- 
lation but a little exceeding that of Massachusetts. Yet, through the 
effect of the slave ratio and the principles of the Constitution, while 
Massachusetts possesses in the Senate and the House of Representa- 
tives twenty-two votes, they possess thirty-three ! All these States 
wliich I hav5 named — Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
Ohio — have paid into the treasury of the United States, in customs, 
scarcely more than fifteen millions of dollars since the adoption of the 



ORATION BEFORE WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. 813 

Constitution. The single State of Massachusetts has paid more than 
forty-two millions net revenue. Yet, upon every question touching 
the life-blood of our commerce, while Massachusetts, in both branches 
of the Legislature, has but twenty-two votes, those States have sixty- 
one ! I state one other fact. The power attained in the House (>f 
Representatives by the effect of the slave ratio is twenty votes. The 
State of Massachusetts has but twenty. So that tliis great and 
ancient and once proud, but now, constitutionally speaking, humbled 
Commonwealth, has absolutely no more weight in the national scale 
than a species of beings in fact as destitute of political rights as the 
brute creation. Upon theoretical principles, can anything be more 
shameful ? The practical effect is worse than the theory. 

" Perhaps, however, it may be said that this evil is temporary, and 
that the causes which have produced this inequality are ceasing to 
operate. The fact is directly the reverse. The causes are perma- 
nent, progressive, and unlimited. All the policy of the government 
is shaped to strengthen them. The iJonstitution itself has been vio- 
lated in order to augment the oppressive preponderancy of that quar- 
ter of the country. 

" Even this state of things, humiliating as it is, might be endured. 
Notwithstanding it presents little comfort for the present and less 
consolation for the future ; notwithstanding it indicates this strange 
condition as the result of our political association, — tK?it the new 
States govern the old, the unsettled the settled, — that the influences 
of emigrants prevail over those of the ancient natives, and that a black 
population outbalances the white, — that from woods and lakes and 
desert wildernesses legislators issue, controlling the destinies of a sea- 
board peojile, paralyzing all their interests and darkening all their 
prospects ; — all this notwithstanding, still the condition might be en- 
dured, upon the principle that it was the fair result of the compact. 
We had agreed that all the people within the ancient limits of the 
United States should be placed on the same footing, and had granted 
an undoubted right to Congress to admit States at will iviihin the 
ancient limits. We had done more : we had submitted to throw our 
rights and liberties and those of our children into common stock with 
the Southern men and their slaves, and had agreed to be content with 
what remained after they and their negroes were served. 

" But what shall we say to what is called the admission of Louisi- 
ana into the Union ? What shall we say to the annexation of a terri- 
U 



814 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

tory greater than the whole of the old United States ? — what to the 
asserted power — indeed already in one instance exercised — of 
xnaking States beyond the Mississippi as unlimited in point of number 
tts of extent '? The indifference with which that usurpation has been 
viewed in this part of the country is an event as astonishing as it is 

ominous Louisiana is spoken of as being an integral pi:'*; of 

this nation, with as much indifierence as though it had been admitted 
by an unquestionable authority. We hear of the Intention of cutting 
it up into new States, with as much unconcern as though we had no 
interest in the matter. Yet every additional State augments that 
depressing inequality of political influence wliich abeady grinds our 
interests in the dust, rivets our chains, and makes more certain and 
hopeless the condition of our pohtical servitude. 

" This, then, is the undeniable condition of the people of the Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts. That proportion of political power 
which they possessed at the time of the adoption of the Constitution 
is gone, and the proportion which remains has not one characteristic 
of equality or justice, — whether we take age, or intelligence, or enter- 
prise, or wealth, or physical strength, or pojiulatlon, as the measure of 
what Is just and equal. This proportion, thus diminished, is every 
day diminishing still further. In a geometrical ratio, by the operation 
of changes, partly the effects of the fair principles of our association 
and partly of usurpation. Such is the result of that ' experience ' to 
which Washington refers us as the ' test of every constitution.' Is this 
a state of things which ought to give content to wise and virtuous 
minds ? 

" As it is with the people of every State, so It is with the people of 
this Commonwealth, — the individuals composing this State owe to 
the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts an allegiance origi- 
nal, inherent, native, and perpetual. True it is that the people of 
this Commonwealth have transferred a certain specified portion of 
allegiance, originally due to them from the individuals composing 
their State, to a certain extrinsic association called the United States. 
This transferred portion of allegiance is not only limited in its nature, 
but it is also conditional. The condition is, that the principles of the 
Constitution should be preserved inviolate. Whether any such vio- 
lation have occurred, or whether it be such as essentially affects 
the securities of their rights and liberties, are questions which the 
people of each of the associated States are competent not only to 



ORATION BEFORE WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. 315 

discuss, but to decide. And we in this Commonwealth have reason 
to thauk the great Giver of every good gift that he has bestowed 
upon this people not only the right to make, but the power to support, 
any decision to which they may be called by a manifest violation of 
their liberties. If the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
shall ever become slaves, it will be from choice, and not from nature, 
— it will be, not because they have not the power to maintain their 
freedom, but because they are unworthy of it. 

This war, the measures which preceded it, and the mode of carrying 
it on, are aU undeniably Southern and Western policy, and not the 
, poUcy of the commercial States. Now it is, in my apprehension, of 
little importance, if the vital interests of the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts are destroyed, whether the blow be given through ignorance, 
indifference, or design. Under these influences they are destroyed. 
And if the apathy of the commercial States continue, atid the present 
spirit of party render them blind to their natural interests, the policy 
which has wrought this destruction will be perpetuated. This policy 
perpetuated, we may call ourselves what we please, — in the eye of 
reason and common sense we are slaves ; and I add, — for I know the 
natures of the predominating influences of those States, — slaves to no 
very desirable masters. 

" This, then, is the undeniable condition of the United States. A 
sectional cabal governing them, not according to the true interests 
of any part, but solely according to the interests of their own ambi- 
tion ; deceiving and misleading the inland influences, corrupting and 
depressing the commercial. The basis of their power not temporary, 
but permanent, because it rests upon changes which time and usurpa- 
tion have made in the relative proportion of the powers of the Consti- 
tution, f What are the remedies ? The spirit of Washington answers : 
' Submit"to no change by usurpation. If the distribution or modifica- 
tion of the constitutional power be wrong, let it be corrected in a con- 
stitutional way.' 

" But how is this to be effected, weak, divided, and oppressed as are 
the commercial States ? I answer. Let them be ashamed of the past. 
Be wise for the future. Put away these divisions. Let common inter- 
ests cement your affections. Out from your councils, and out from your 
confidence, be every man who will not maintain the old foundations of 
New England prosperity. Follow no longer after the doctrines and 
comnmndments of men from the mountains. Contend earnestly for 



316 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the commercial faith delivered by your fathers. And let him who will 
not stand up for it be to you worse than an infidel. 

" Let ancient divisions cease, and the poor triumphs of party be for- 
gotten in the contemplation of the interests of Massachusetts. The 
venerable name of government, the respect due to authority, the 
obtrusive pretensions of impostors in power, have misled many. 
Thank Heaven I the scales are flist falling from the eyes. The snare 
of the fowler is broken, and New England is escaping. 

" But remember. It is not relief from commercial restrictions, nor 
yet the attainment of peace, nor yet the change of your rulers, that is 
to be the object of your struggles. Doubtless the jugglers will shift 
the hand when they see the old game is discovered. They understand . 
well that the commercial influences are not to be crushed in a mo- 
ment. Although the leviathan is hooked, he cannot be drawn at 
once and speared to the land. He must be played backAvard and 
fbrward at the end of the line, — now a little given, and then taken 
away, until, exhausted by idle efforts, the strength and adhesion of 
his parts gone, his fat shall be transferred to the mountains, and he 
shall remain, the skeleton of his former greatness, the scorn and the 
Bport of his spoilers. 

" People of Massachusetts ! People of the commercial States ! Look 
into the foundations of your security. Strive to bring back the prin- 
ciples and proportions of the Constitution to the standard of Wash- 
ington. Nay, more, — by a great consentaneous and constitutional 
effort, strive to bring it back to the principles of wise and honorable 
safety. Look at the fact, that, by the operation of the slave ratio in 
the Constitution and by the unlimited power of making new States, 
partly the result of the provisions of the Constitution, partly of usurpa- 
tion, the proportion of political power bears no relation to the propor- 
tion of your real interests. Recollect that this state of things is daily 
growing worse. Remember that the very blacks of tlie Southern 
States are equal in weight, in the jjolitical scale, to the whole State of 
Massachusetts. Is this a condition of things patiently to be borne by 
freemen, at least without one constitutional effort ? If it be, we de- 
serve what we endure. We deserve to be what we are, — of no more 
weight than slaves." 

This oration was received by the Federalists in all parts of 
the country w^ith the warmest applause. His old Congressional 
friends and other prominent members of the party sent him let- 
ters full of cordial agreement with its sentiments, and of high 



LETTER FROM GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 317 

approval of its method. Mr. David B. Ogden, perhaps the head 
of the bar of New York at that time, wrote to him as follows, 
May 13th: — 

" I have long been of the opinion that the course of public affairs 
in this country was such as naturally, and I believe intentionally, to 
destroy the weight and influence of the Northern commercial States, 
and I cannot but think the country under great obligation to you for 
placing the subject before the people in the strong and able manner 
in which it is done by this oration. The time has arrived when the 
truth must be spoken, and spoken plainly, or we are lost." 

The following letter from Mr. Gouverneur Morris shows how 
strong party spirit must have been when it could suffer the idea 
of resisting the impot^ition of taxes for the purpose of providing 
for the payment of the interest of a public debt, legally con- 
tracted, to enter the mind of so eminent a disciple of the school 
of Washington and Hamilton. 

"MORRISANIA, May 15, 1813. 

" Dear Sir : — Accept, I pray, my thanks for the oration you had 
the kindness to send. I have read it twice with renewed pleasure, — 
not merely as a composition, though in that respect excellent, but for 
the profound sense and just views which it displays. The subject you 
have broached must be pursued, and our national compact brought to 
the test of reason, matured by experience. That most important ques- 
tion must be thorouglily examined, — Can a commercial people har- 
monize with the masters of slaves ? In the mean time, it is essential 
that taxes be opposed on the broad principle that it is impious alike to 
shed the blood of man in unjust war, and to support those who com- 
mit that impiety. Should it be objected, as it probably will, to favor 
lenders and their associates, that pubhc faith is pledged, it may be 
replied that a pledge wickedly given is not to be redeemed ; moreover, 
the pledge was not given, for acts of Congress violating the Constitu- 
tion are void. The issue of paper money receivable in taxes was un- 
constitutional, because it was a violation of faith, previously pledged, 
that the produce of those taxes should be applied in payment of our 
old debt ; and in like manner the second appropriation of the same 
taxes to a new loan was a violation of the first contract. The sub- 
scribers to that loan, therefore, will have no right to complain, for it 
was their duty to examine the validity of the act before they sub- 
scribed. Moreover, the refusal to lay taxes which could honestly be 



318 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

appropriated was in itself a sufficient warning. Let then the [illegi- 
ble in the original] patriots who trusted after this warning apply for 
payment to tlie gentlemen who violated public faith in the very act by 
which they pretended to pledge it. Those who say they are the friends 
of peace will give themselves the lie, if, directly or indirectly, they 
furnish the means of war. And they must not pretend to be actuated 
by patriotic sentiment ; for not only is the war unnecessary and unjust, 
but its professed object, if attainable, is inconsistent with our interest 
and our rights. Moreover, a satisfactory arrangement on the subject 
of impressment is in our power at any moment ; for to obtain it re- 
quires neither the force of armies, the skill of generals, nor the dex- 
terity of ministei's. Let the first article of a treaty be proposed by U9, 
and let it be the acknowledgment of a belligerent's right to take his 
subjects from neutral merchant-ships, as an unquestionable principle 
of public law. Let us then call on the British negotiator for a second 
article, containing such regulations of the practice of that right as 
they think convenient. We need not hesitate about submitting to 
conditions which they will submit to in their turn ; for, as it is a sound 
maxim of legal prudence that no man need be wiser than the law, so 
it is a safe maxim of political prudence, that no nation need be prouder 
than the British. 

" But lessential as it is to peace that supplies be withheld, it is not 
less essential to the recovery of those rights which the commercial 
States have lost by their compact with slave-holders, and tlie sub- 
sequent abuse of that compact. I stop; for why should I give you 
the trouble to read what you have long since thought ? This letter 
already so much exceeds all reasonable bound, that I must pray your 
pardon for what it contains, and extend it no further than to assure 
you of the esteem and respect with which I am yours, 

" GouvERXEUR Morris." 

Colonel Pickering wrote to him from Washington, May 
28th : — 

" At Philadelphia, inquiry was made for your oration before the 
Washington Benevolent Society, and since my arrival here I have 
been requested to obtain a copy or two, from which an edition may 
be published in that city. I brought with me the copy you presented 
to me, and will transmit that to Philadelphia as soon as I receive it 
from some members of Congress who wish to read it. I suppose you 
have a parcel for distribution among your friends. At any rate, 1 
pray you to send me some, if but two or three copies We have 



LETTERS FROM FRIENDS. 319 

not yet had a single document from the Executive. The majority are 
silent, probably canvassing to know the members who will support the 
plans of the Executive, whatever they may be." 

His friend Mr. Elisha R. Potter, member of the House from 
Rhode Island, after paying his tribute of praise to the oration, 
goes on to give an account of a false alarm at the Capitol of the 
near approach of the British, which did but anticipate the true 
alarm which overtook it about a twelvemonth afterwards. The 
letter bears date July 19th. 

" We have had nothing very interesting at this place until a few 
days past. Since the night before last all has been alarm and confu- 
sion. An express then arrived, informing that the British fleet were 
on their way up the Potomac with a fair whole-sail [.v/c] breeze, and 
that their object was this place. We soon afterwards heard that part 
of them were in the Potomac, and the remainder had gone to Anna- 
polis, and were landing their forces at that place. We had many long 
faces among the war gentry yesterday morning. Secretary Armstrong, 
with the Regulars, City Volunteers, and Militia, left this city and went 
over the Eastern Branch, and went to Fort Warburton, and has not 
returned. The alarm has this morning a little subsided. We had a 
secret session yesterday for two or three hours, which gave an oppor- 
tunity of hearing some patriotic speeches ; but with those I was not 
much disturbed, as you know I am not much for war and fighting. If 
this place should be attacked, I shall neither run nor fight. My pride 
will not permit me to run, and I detest this war too much to fight." 

Mr. Bleecker wrote from Albany, May 14th, speaking of this 
oration : — 

" Its tone and spirit are approved by every one I have heard speak 
of it. I regret that there are not more copies in pamphlet form for 
distribution in this part of the country. It is particularly important 
that the facts and opinions you have so impressively stated should be 
extensively diffused in this State. Our people are yet blind." 

The letter from Mr. Artemas Ward, — Mr. Quincy's successor 
for the First District, the son of the first Major-General commis- 
sioned in the Revolutionary war, and himself afterwards Chief 
Justice of the Common Pleas.for many years, — from which the 
following extracts are made, contains some boarding-house gossip 
doubtless interesting to his correspondent, and some statements 



320 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

as to the distribution of taxation, and the exercise of the appoint- 
ing power during the recess of the Senate, not uninteresting to 
any of us at this time. It is dated June 9th, 1813. 

" I am at Captain Coyle's, and occupy the front upper cham- 
ber. I had my choice of what was left when I arrived. A total 
chano-e has taken place in C.'s family. Not one has been there this 
session who were boarders in your days. How this happened I can- 
not tell, as I neither inquire into nor disclose family secrets 

The present boarders are Mr. Stockton, Mr. Schureman, and Mr. Coxe, 
Representatives from New Jersey, Mr. Daggett, the successor of Mr. 
Goodrich, Mr. Webster, and myself. Mr. Stockton is a celebrated 
lawyer, — the first in his State. He has been before, some years ago, 
a member of the Senate and the House ; but, like all other new mem- 
bers, does not feel that all the fight is his own. Mr. Schureman is a 
ver}'' sound, judicious, sensible man. Has heretofore been a member 
of the Senate and the House. Mr. Coxe is a gentleman farmer, sen- 
sible and scientific in his way, well educated, etc. Mr. Daggett is a 
lawyer of great celebrity, and a companionable, pleasant man. Mr. 
Webster you know. When I arrived at Washington I found the 
Jersey gentlemeji in possession. Mr. Daggett came with an order 
from Mr. Goodrich for his birthright. Mk Webster and myself took 

what was left My accommodations are good, but I left much 

better at home, to which I cast many a longing look The 

Chancellor of the Exchequer has not yet opened his budget. It is re- 
ported that it will soon be done. Mr. Pitkin says the Committee of 
Ways and Means have agreed upon a report, excepting as to the 
time when the bills are to go into operation, which they are about to 
report, imposing taxes. Mr. Eppes is for making the day far distant. 
He speaks of this session of Congress as being unnecessary, etc., and 
does not march up to the taxes with so bold a front as some of his 
brethren. There is, in ray mind, good ground for believing that the 
leaders of the Administration party are much embarrassed. All agree 
that taxes are necessary ; but when they put forth their hands and 
touch the bone and flesh of their several sections, each wishes to save 

his own, and, eventually, it is very possible they will not agree 

The Executive business before the Senate undergoes much hard dis- 
cussion. The late nomination of Gallatin has been the subject of 
very free remarks in that body, and the right of the President in the 
recess of the Senate to appoint him, questioned. It is denied that a 
vacancy had happened in the office to which he was appointed," etc. 



LETTER FROM COLONEL PICKERING. 321 

The Mr. Webster mentioned in this letter was the celebrated 
orator, who began his long public life at this time as a Repre- 
sentative from New Hampshire. The nomination of Gallatin, 
of which Mr. Ward speaks, was to be one of the two special 
commissioners appointed to join Mr. Adams at St. Petersburg 
for the purpose of procuring the mediation of the Emperor 
Alexander between England and the United States. The ap- 
pointment of Mr. Gallatin was resisted on the grounds men- 
tioned by Mr. Ward, but especially because he still retained the 
office of Secretary of the Treasury, the duties of which were 
j)erformed by the Secretary of the Navy. Tiie nomination was 
finally rejected at this time, though it was confirmed on its re- 
newal many months later. The other commissioner was James 
A. Bayard of Delaware, who had most ably represented his State 
in the Hou>e and the Senate since 1797. He had always been a 
consistent Federalist, and was one of thoe whom Mr. Jefferson 
honored by a posthumous attack, although he owed his first elec- 
tion to Mr. Bayard's preferring him to Burr as the least of two 
evils. His consenting to accept office at the hands of Mr. Madi- 
son was naturally an occasion of some suspicion and displeasure 
to his old political comrades. It was in reply to a letter from 
Mr. Quincy containing some intimation of this nature that Col- 
onel Pickering wrote the following answer : — 

Colonel Pickering to ]VIr. Quincy. 

" Washington, June 17, 1813. 

"Dear Sir : — I have this evening received your letter of the 10th, 
and will take due care of that enclosed. 

" Although Mr. Bayard's conduct was not, on all occasions, just 
what I wished, yet in the main it was correct, according to oiir views; 
and he certainly possesses eminent talents. On my way hither I fell 
in with a gentleman of considerable distinction for intelligence and 
learning, — a native, though not a resident in Delaware. Speaking of 
Bayard he said : ' He is a man of supreme ambition. He is at the 
same time wealthy. Having abilities, wealth, and ambition, what can 
he want ? Honors, — such honors now as may lead to the highest 
hereafter.' 

" From the information of different gentlemen who conversed with 
14* U 



322 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Bayard, I am satisfied that he expected the mission would elToct a 
peace. He particularly said that his instructions were broad enough 
to render peace practicable. 

" A discussion took place to-day on Mr. Webstei-'s resolutions.* 
Mr. Grosvenorf spoke ably, and his colleague Oakley J (who comes 
in Emott's place) displayed very great ingenuity. Grundy and Cal- 
houn will probably exhibit to-morrow ; and Webster, with Mr. Gas- 
ton § of North Carolina (a very eloquent man), I hope will close the 
debate. As much as many of the E.xecutive party wish to prevent 
the inquiry, I am inclined to think the resolution will be substantially 
adopted ; while I am aware that the most influential membei*s of the 
ruling party are insensible to shame, and will therefore strain every 
nerve to crush the inquiry. Cheves and Lowndes have been silent. 
Taliaferro again contests Hungerford's election, 1| and attempted to 
set the whole election aside as irregular and illegal. Speaker Clay 
and Calhoun exerted themselves for the purpose ; and the former 
especially, I am assured, is greatly mortified at his defeat ; a majority 
of four declared the election valid, so far as that Hungerford should 
keep his seat, subject to a scrutiny of the polls. 

" With great esteem and respect, I am yours, 

" T. Pickering." 

Although no longer in Congress, Mr. Quincy had by no means 
retired from public life. At the spring election of 1813 he was 
cho-en one of the Senators from Boston in the State Legislature ; 
and his course there soon made him quite as prominent before 
the country, and as well abused by the Democratic orators and 
newspapers, as he h_ad ever been in Washington. He easily took 
the lead in the Senate, and, in conjunction with his friends Lloyd 

* Resolntions calling for information as to how and when the government ob- 
tained information concerning Bonaparte's Decree of April 28, 1811. 

j Thomas P. Grosvenor of New York, member from 1813 to 1818; one of the 
best debaters in the House. 

t Thomas. J. Oakley was an eminent lawyer of New York; born, 1783; gradu- 
ated at Yale College, 1801; Justice and Chief Justice of the Superior Court; 
died, 1857. 

<j William Gaston was one of the most distinguished citizens of North Caro- 
lina, and a firm Federalist throughout; Member of Congress, 1813 to 1817. He 
was a graJuate of Princeton College, and was a very cultivated and accom- 
plished man. H 2 died in 1844. 

II John Taliaferro, who was m.any j'ears in the House at different times, did 
not succeed in unseating John P. Hungerford now. Hungerford was a Revolu- 
tionary officer. He sat from 1813 to 1817. 



THE LOUISIANA RESOLUTION. 323 

and Otis in the House, — the former of whom had resigned his 
seat in the Senate of the United States, — presented a front of 
opposition, not to say resistance, to the war policy of the Ad- 
ministration scarcely less alarming to its fears than the successes 
of the enemy in those early days of the war. A remonstrance 
was agreed upon reprobating the war as impolitic and unjust 
after the repeal of the Orders in Council, — as having the color at 
least of being waged in alliance with France against England, — 
as having no just occasion in the vexed question of impressment, 
because that is^ue had never been presented to England a.s one 
of peace or war, and because the resources of negotiation had 
not been yet exhausted upon it. It went on to state tliat the 
Northern .people, who had no need of Southern aid for their de- 
fence, had consented to the slave representation for the purpose 
of obtaining national protection for tlieir commerce ; but their 
commerce, far from receiving that protection, had been for years 
the object of a systematic course of hostilities from the general 
government, ending in its destruction by this war. 

Another report was accepted at the same time, denouncing the 
purchase of Louisiana, on the grounds with which my readers 
are by this time sufficiently familiar, and proposing a joint reso- 
lution instructing the Senators and requesting the Representa- 
tives of the State to endeavor to obtain a repeal of the act of 
Congress admitting Louisiana into the Union. The report was ac- 
cepted, and the joint resolution passed both Houses. This report 
was transmitted at once to Colonel Pickering, at Washington, by 
Mr. Quincy, from whom the following answer was received, with 
all despatch. His prophecy as to the secession of the Western 
States, as the consequence of that extension of territory, shows 
how inscrutable is the future of nations to the vision even of 
the most experienced and sagacious statesmen. 

Colonel Pickering to Mr. Quincy. 

" City of Washington, June 19, 1813. 
" Dear Sir : — I this day received under your cover the Report of 
the Joint Committee concerning the admission of Louisiana as a State 
into the Union. That Massachusetts should express its opinion in the 



324 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

naturo of a protest might be expedient; but, under my present view 
of the subject, I regret the proposed resolution instructing the dele- 
gates from Massachusetts to endeavor to obtain a repeal of the act of 
Congress for admitting Louisiana into the Union. You know the at- 
tempt must be fruitless. I presume that some who opposed the admis- 
sion would iiot now vote to repeal. It seems to be one of those acts 
to which the saying applies, Quod non fieri debet , factum valet. 

" I consider the thing as utterly hopeless. More States will be created, 
Tither than the first disfranchised. The first and only remody will be 
when the Southern Atlantic States shall open their eyes, and see their 
true interest in a close and firm connection with the Northern half of 
the Union. Then Congress will equalize the public burdens ; and then 
the Western States with Louisiana will fly off. They will detach 
themselves, take to their own use all the Western lands, and leave the 
whole national debt on the shoulders of the Atlantic States. 
" I am, dear sir, sincerely yours, 

" T. Pickering." 

The action of Mr. Quincy, however, which drew down the 
most violent denunciations of the war party upon his head was 
the report and resolution annexed, written and offered by him on 
the occasion of a vote of thanks to Captain Lawrence for the 
capture of the Peacock coming up from the House for the con- 
currence of the Senate. The report did am|)le justice to the 
naval skill and military and civil virtues of Captain Lawrence ; 
but recommended — on the ground that previous votes of the same 
kind, in honor of other victorious officers, had been regarded by 
many conscientious pei'sons as an encouragement to an unjust, 
unnecessary, and iniquitous war — that the following resolution 
be adopted in its stead, Avhich was accordingly done : — 

" Resolved, That in a war like the present, waged without justifiable 
cause, and prosecuted in a manner indicating that conquest and am- 
bition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious 
])eople to express any approbation of military and naval exploits not 
immediately connected with the defence of our sea-coast and soil." 

Whether this refusal to acknowledge the services of a gallant 
and meritorious officer, rendered in the course of his duty, was 
justifiable on the part of the Legislature, I shall not stop to 
consider. My readers are competent to decide that question for 



SETH SPRAGUE. 325 

themselves. But it showed, in the most emphatic manner, the 
strength of pohtical feeling and of party spirit at that time, made 
more intense and bitter by the general distress which the war 
brought upon all ranks of society. It was denounced at Wash- 
ington as " moral treason," and the phrase " unbecoming a moral 
and religious peo[)le " became almost as much a popular by- 
word as " peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must," itself. 
In January, 1824, when the Democrats had obtained the control 
of the State, this resolution was ordered, by a strict party vote, 
to be erased from the journal of the Senate. This was done on 
the motion of Mr. Seth Sprague of Duxbury, an active Demo- 
cratic politician ever since Democracy was, who expiated the 
services which he had thus ignorantly rendered to slavery dur- 
ing his prime of manhood, by the active, intelligent, and un- 
wearied anti-slavery labors of his old age. This venerable man, 
who died in 1847 in his eighty-eighth year, often said to me that 
he wished he could be elected to the Senate once more, only that 
he might endeavor to undo what he had then done, — to expunge 
the expunging, and restore the record to the condition in which 
it stood before he touched it. Mr. Sprague was the father of 
Mr. Peleg Sprague, formerly a Senator from Maine in Congress, 
and latterly Judge of the United States District Court for Mas- 
sachusetts, for many years. 

The legislative action I have related was but a faint expres- 
sion of the sense of injury felt by the majority of the people 
of Massachusetts, and indeed of New England. The hardships 
which the course of the Administration had brought to the door 
of almost every man in the Norihern region, and especially in 
that portion of it which lies along the sea-coast, had set the face 
of New England as a flint against the w'ar and its promoters. 
The feeling of disaffection to the general government outside the 
walls of the State-House was much deeper and more embittered 
than that which found utterance within them. In private circles 
and through the press the doctrine that the injuries inflicted upon 
the rights and interests of New England would justify the 
strongest measures for the vindication of the one and the main- 
tenance of the other, was eagerly and passionately affirmed and 



326 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

argued. The intense excitement of those days extended itself 
ovex' many months. That it did not bi'eak out into actual resist- 
ance was due to the settled habits of order and obedience to 
law in which the institutions of New England had bred and con- 
firmed her people. And that this feeling was not confined to that 
region is shown by the following letter from Gouverneur Morris, 
a retired statesman and diplomatist, a man of fortune and elegant 
tastes, — one who had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, by 
a political convulsion. 

Mr. Morris to Mr. Quincy. 

"MoRRiSANiA, August 18, 1813. 

"Dear Sir: — Accept my thanks for your favor of the 10th. In 
the present state of public afiairs our greatest danger Is, I think, in 
the timidity of those who see and feel the present evils, but are dis- 
tracted by the apprehension ' of what may happen ' should the state 
of things be changed. The change, if it take place, must be effected 
by the very men whose moral condition produces that timidity. In 
ordinary cases, ambitious demagogues effect revolutions by stirring 
up the dregs of mankind to revolt against established order and the 
wholesome restraints of law. If that class of the community be now 
called Into action, the country will be plunged in a still greater 
depth of distress, and have no hope of relief but from despotism, 
which, indeed, must soon take place if the present state of things 
continue unchecked. But those who fear for the future may console 
themselves by the reflection, that a change by mob power cannot be 
made. If, therefore, they will do their duty,' the whole authority will 
be In their hands, and can be so modified and deposited as to secure 
permanent, good, free government. To develop this proposition would 
require a treatise instead of a letter, and is moreover unnecessary, for 
you must be convinced of It ; and they are not convinced only because 
they look at what they may lose by action, and shut their eyes on 
what they must lose by Inaction. I am ready to acknowledge the value 
of property, but I pray these gentlemen to consider that we are now 
on the down-hill road to that condition In which there Is no property, — 
no, not in Hfe itself, — because there Is no security. 

" I will not presume to say what steps should be taken, but I hold 
myself ready to follow any honest lead. 

" Believe me, truly yours, 

" Gouverneur Morris." 



MATTHEW LYON. 327 

One of the oddest conjunctions into which the changes and 
chances of political life brought my father was the one which 
made him the correspondent of Matthew Lyon, first of Vermont 
and afterwards of Kentucky, for several years a most notorious 
political actor on the Congressional scene. He was a native of 
Ireland, and came to this country as a redemptioner, or an emi- 
grant whose services were sold for a term of years by the im- 
porter to pay for his passage and other expenses. He was 
bought by a citizen of Vermont, where in due time he grew into 
a conspicuous member of the Anti- Washington party. In 1797 
he went to Congress, where he inaugurated, in January, 1798, 
the series of acts of personal insult and violence which have dis- 
graced Congress from time to time from that day to this, by spit- 
ting in the face of Mr. Griswold of Connecticut on some* occasion 
of offence he took at him. The House refusing to expel him, 
by a strict party vote, Mr. Griswold took justice into his own 
hands, and caned him in his seat a few days afterwards, for which 
irregular process of redress he too went scot-free, also by a party 
vote, neither the Administration nor the Opposition commanding 
the two thirds requisite for the expulsion of a member. Lyou 
acted with the Anti-Adams and Jeffersonian party for the chief 
of his Congi'essional career, carrying his professions of republi- 
can purism beyond even the canons set up by the most advanced 
section of the Democratic party, — as when he asked to be 
specially excused from- accompanying the House to present the 
Address to President Adams in response to his Message, which 
was then the custom, on the ground that it was an anti-republican 
and slavish mimicry of monarchical customs. Later in the same 
year he was tried, convicted, fined, and imprisoned for libel under 
the Alien and Sedition laws, his party still refusing to expel him, 
on his return to his seat in the House, after the expiration of his 
sentence. At the end of his term he did not return to Vermont, 
but emigrated to Kentucky, from which State he obtained an 
election to the House in 1803. My father once asked him how 
he managed this matter. " By establishing myself at a cross- 
roads by which everybody in the district passed from time to 
time, and abusing the sitting member ! " was his simple and satis- 



328 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

factory explanation of the phenomenon. During his membership 
for Kentucky he acted with the Federalists in opposition to the 
Embargo and the other restrictive acts of the Administration, 
which was probably the cause of his illustrating one of my father's 
favorite sayings, — " that politics, like misery, brings a man ac-» 
quainted with strange bedfellows." His letters bear marks of 
an imperfect education, not unseldom of what Lord Clie-terfield 
calls "auricular orthography"; but they indicate strength and 
energy of character and sound common-sense. Indeed, these 
qualities could not be wanting in one who carried his first electioa 
to Congress by means of a newspaper of which he was not 
merely the editor, but for which he cast the types, and made the 
paper out of bass-wood himself I will give some brief speci- 
mens of his letters. 

"I may tell you that I am very well pleased with the part Massa- 
chusetts has acted in the political drama before us. Her Governor has 
won my heart. Her Assembly have acted like men who sincerely loved 
their country. But the New England States are beaten in the politi- 
cal race for President. The mobbish Democratic spirit has carried 
the nation far on towards ruin. But I cannot, will not, despair for this 
nation, at the foundations of which I have labored with as much zeal 
as a devotee ever labored for Heaven or his God. You must not de- 
spair. Massachusetts must not despair. Let nie see no disposition in 
her toward disunion. She must save the nation she created. She has 
the greatest power and influence to do so. She is now regenerated on 
the ancient principles of the Revolution. Let her move majestical to- 
ward the main object, the salvation of the nation, and all will be well." 

" I acknowledge the long-suffering of your part of the nation is 
great, and your forbearance wonderful. But I hope New England 
will, in this very critical day, act like politicians and patriots. They 
must see that (as God would have it) those who caused the war are 
suffering most, or the constituents of those, while the Eastern peo- 
ple have the satisfoction to see the navy, which they have ever fos- 
tered, gaining laurels and making reprisals. The Western people 
are miserably disappointed in all their projects. Their friends are 
butchered and their efforts despised by their enemy, bringing home 
shame and disgrace to the doors of those bullying politicians in whom 
they placed too much confidence." 

My father used to tell this characteristic story of JMatthew 



LETTERS FKOM JOHN RANDOLPH. 329 

Lyon's method of managing his constituents. In those days of 
few newspapers and tedious postal communication, it was the 
custom of the members from the remoter and more thinly set- 
tled sections of the country to wi-ite political letters to their con- 
stituents, giving an account of what is now called " the situation," 
which were printed and distributed under their frank. One day 
my father asked Lyon how he avoided offending those of his con- 
stituents to whom he neglected to send his political missives, as 
it was quite impossible that he should remember them all. " I 
manage it in this way," he replied. " When I am canvassing my 
district, and I come across a man who looks distantly and coldly 
at me, I go up cordially to him and say, ' My dear friend, you 
got my printed letter last session, of ci urse ? ' ' No, sir,' replies 
the man with offended dignity, ' I got no such thing.' ' No ! ' 
I cry out in a passion. ' No ! ! Damn that post-office ! ' Then 
I make a memorandum of the man's name and address, and 
when I get back to Washington I write him an autograph letter, 
and all is put to rights." 

I will end this chapter with the letters of John Randolph be- 
longing to the year 1813, — another of the strange bedfellows 
with whom politics had brought my father acquainted, though cer- 
tainly as different a one from Matthew Lyon as nature, circum- 
stances, and education could make two men. 

Mr. Randolph to Mr. Quincy. 

"Farmville (Va.), April 19, 1813 
" Dear Sir : — I thank you very sincerely for your remembrance 
of me. Your letter, the Report on Impressment, and the newspaper 
containing the Celebration of the Russian successes in the town of 
Boston, have all been received. This festival does honor to those who 
planned and presided over it, and, as primus inter pares, I beg that you 
will present my best respects to Mr. Otis. In return for all these 
civilities, I have to tell you that my election is lost.) The emissaries 
of government have been silently and secretly at work since last au- 
tumn, and while my friends indulged in a fatal security they have 
been undermined. My opponent has descended to the lowest and 
most disgraceful means, — riding from house to house, and attending 
day and night meetings in the cabins and hovels of the lowest of the 



V 



330 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

people. He was present at fourteen of these preachings (seven of 
them held at night) the week before the election At the elec- 
tion for this county (Prince Edward) yesterday, Mr. E. said I had 
charged the Administration with being under French influence. In 
reply I told the freeholders that I would prove it, and did to their sat- 
isfaction. A notorious villain named Tom Logwood, from Bucking- 
ham, who was committed to the Penitentiary some years ago for for- 
ging bank-notes of the United States (I was on his jury), undertook 
to speak impertinently to me when on the bench. He had been seen 
laughing, talking, and drinking with E. at Buckingham. (N. B. Mr. 
Jefl'erson released him by a pardon.) I never saw such indignation. 
The scoundrel was obliged to take to his heels and make his escape 
home, or he would have been beaten to a jelly. 

" Ignorant people were made to believe that the British fleet had 
come into the Chesapeake to aid my election ; and the Russian medi- 
ation has also been played off" with great effect on the uninformed. 
Gray will lose his election also. Shefiy is safe, and Breckenridge 
likewise 

" With every good wish, I am, dear sir, most truly yours, \ 

"John Randolph of Roanoke. N 

*' Pray give my love to Tudor." 

The Same to the Same. 

"Roanoke, May 23, 1813. 

" Dear Sir : — You lay me under obligations which I know not 
how to requite, and yet I cannot help requesting a continuance of 
them. I have been highly gratified to-day by the receipt of your let- 
ter of the 5th, and the accompanying pamphlet. I have read them 
both with deep attention, and with a melancholy pleasure which I 
should find it difficult to describe. You are under some misappre- 
hension respecting my opinions in regard to certain men and meas- 
ures, — the true sources of our present calamities. They are not 
materially, if at all, variant from your own. It is time indeed to speak 
out ; but if, as I fear, the canine race in New York have returned to 
their vomit, the voice of truth and of patriotism will be as the voice 
of one crying in the wilderness. I feel most sensibly the difficulties 
of our situation, but the question is as to the remedy. 

" I had taken the same views (in one respect) of the election in this 
district that you have done. But, paradoxical as it may appear, I am 
convinced that the war and its authors are less popular in Virginia 
than ever, and that the result of the election here was owing to a for- 



LETTERS FEOM JOHN RANDOLPH. 331 

tuitous concurrence of events, some of them merely local and personal. 
The Russian mediation, however, was the great gull-trap. Legion 
could not believe that the government which accepted it would have 
any other object in view but peace ; and the glory of the Russian vic- 
tories, which should have called a crimson blush to the cheeks of the 
tools of Bonaparte, has thrown a false splendor ax'ound them, and 
given them a temporary reprieve from the sentence of public reproba- 
tion which impended over them. The incapacity and imbecility of 
the British Ministry has also contributed to give a false popularity to 
our own Administration. At the same time I would not have you ex- 
pect relief from the sympathy of the Southern country, the people of 
which are prepossessed by the demons of faction and discord with no 
very favorable opinion of you. And, indeed, if our own privations 
and sufferings fall to open our eyes, you cannot take it unkind that we 
should continue insensible to the grievances of others seven hundred 
miles off. The history of the government of this country, if faithfully 
written, would sound like romance in the ears of succeeding genera- 
tions, and be utterly discredited by them. But for this consideration 
I have sometimes thought that I would undertake the task. The op- 
pression of Lord North's administration was lenity and compassion to 
the regime of the last six years. Mankind have ever been the dupes 
of professions, and imposed upon by names. We fondly thought that 
we were about to become an exception to the general laws of political 
philosophy, and our disgrace and punishment is like to be jiroportion- 
ate to our vanity and presumption. 

" I find that our friend, Mr. Lloyd, has resigned his seat in the Sen- 
ate, and for his sake I rejoice at his release from a state of bondage, 
not quite as abject, indeed, as that to which we were sometime subject, 
but irksome and odious to every high-minded man 

" You have so often and so pressingly invited me to Boston, that I 
am at a loss how to reply, except by telling you that, if I can come, 
come I will. Be assured that I want no additional inducement to exe- 
cute a plan that I have had long much at heart, and, if domestic mat- 
ters will permit, I shall be Northward some time between midsummer 
and November. Hitherto I have not been able to add a single link to 
my chain. 

" Be so good as to present me respectfully to Mr. Lloyd, and believe 
me, dear sir, with real regard, yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke. 
" My best respects to IMr. Otis." 



3S2 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

The Same to the Same. 

"Roanoke, June 20, 1813. 

" Dear Sir : — One of my New York papers received to-day con- 
tains the answers of the two branches of your Legislature to Governor 
Strong's excellent Address. In these state papers I think I recognize 
the pen of an old acquaintance, to whom I have been frequently 
obliged for the most sound and constitutional expositions of the prin- 
ciples of our heteroclite government. I think, too, that in the same 
print I can discern some traces of the less familiar style of another 
gentleman, to whom I beg to be mentioned in terms of the most cor- 
dial respect. My nature has become so degenerate and grovelling, 
during a double apprenticeship to the art, mystery, or craft of politics, 
that for the life of me I cannot envy, whilst 1 admire and esteem, the 
services which you are both rendering to your country. Neither can 
I, by the help of newspaper puffs, patriotic toasts, or Congressional 
rhetoric, work myself up into any serious regret that I am no longer 
under the abject dominion of Mr. H. Clay & Co. Not that I would 
be guilty of a contempt, or even insinuate anything in derogation, of 
Kentuckian suavity or courtesy, but, for the soul of me, I cannot be 
hona-Jidely sorry, as one of their great orators would say, that I am 
here at home, where, like the Centurion, I say to one. Go, and he 
goeth, to another. Do this, and he doeth it, rather than under the 
discipline and order of the Calhouns, Grundys, and Seavers. 

" You are likely to find in me at once a troublesome and unprofita- 
ble correspondent. Far removed from our provincial capital, I can 
procure nothing, even if it aSbrded anything of interest, to send you. 
And as all eyes are upon you at this time I must request you to fur- 
nish me with such publications as Boston affords, begging you to hold 
in remembrance that we have here a little school of intelligent free- 
holders upon whom such things are not thrown away. I have no 
doubt that hundreds, who, under the influence of artifice and tempo- 
rary excitement, voted against me last April, now deplore it, and I 
must not fail to apprise you that the greater part of those who gave 
their suffrage to my competitor did it under the idea that it was the 
only chance to bring about peace. It was said that the government 
wanted peace, and the Russian mission was adduced in proof of it ; 
but that such as you and I opposed them in everything, and the enemy 
would never grant us peace until we were more united 

" Believe me, with best wishes for you and yours, and with the truest 
esteem, dear sir, your friend and servant, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke." 



LETTERS FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 833 

The Same to the Same. 

"Roanoke, June 28, 1813. 
*' Dear Sir : — This day's mail brought me the report of your 
Legislature on the subjent of the defence of Boston. The act of Con- 
gress of the 23d of April, 1808, for arming the militia, was, as you 
know, a bantling of my own nursing. I knew that the brat was hate- 
ful to the sight of the stepmothers of the Constitution, and foresaw 
that they would try to overlay it. I asked for an annual million, and 
they gave us a beggarly appointment of two hundred thousand dollars, 
the greater part of which they have contrived to embezzle, and the 
proceeds of the remainder they have distributed amongst their favor- 
ites. The terms of the act are imperative ; they admit of no discre- 
tion ; and if anything in the shape of political effrontery could have 
surprised me, I should have been astonished at the impudence with 
which this malfeasance and malversation has been, not merely palli- 
ated, but justified on the floor of Congress. Rely upon it, that, with 
all the unpromising appearances of the prospect in this quarter, there 
is a revulsion in the public sentiment. I have washed my hands of 
politics, but I cannot be insensible of the change which the matchless 
folly of our rulers is effecting in Virginia, and even in Kentucky, 
where the men of light and leading are gradually opening their eyes 
to the sins and fooleries of Administration. I beg you to present me 
most respectfully and cordially to Mr. Lloyd, .... and accept for 
yourself, dear sir, the assurance of my most sincere regard and at- 
tachment. 

"John Randolph of Roanoke. 

" I hope Tudor is not deficient in his duty to yourself and Mrs. Q. 
Pray offer to her my best wishes." 

The Same to the Same. 

" Roanoke, July 4, 1813. 

"My dear Sir: — Your welcome letter of the 18th of June has 
just now arrived. The papers to which you refer have not come to 
hand, but I confidently expect them by the next post. I have seen 
the report, however, in the New York Herald [Evening Post], and 
gave It a cursory reading. I thought I could recognize the hand that 
drew it. 

" We are all here In a state of great alarm and distress. The Gov- 
ernor has called for more than one fourth of our effective men from 
every county far and wide. From those nearer the theatre of war a 



334 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

yet greater proportion has been demanded. Tlie distress and alarm 
occasioned by this requisition do not arise from /ear of the prowess of 
the enemy ^ but of the effects of the climate and water of the lower 
country, especially at this season, and the danger from an internal foe, 
augmented by the removal of so large a portion of our force. Of the 
result you can form no conception. ' I have seen more crying,' said 
an old neighboring freeholder to me this morning, ' since Friday (the 
2d), than I have, seen in all my life before.' If the cold-blooded in- 
sect whom God, for wise purposes, has inflicted upon us, (Pharaoh 
was plagued with some of the same species,) could have heard the 
shrieks of agonizing wives that yet ring in my ears, .... I am per- 
suaded, some compunctious visitings of his reptile nature would have 
knocked at his heart. Perhaps you do not know that the climate 
and water of the lower country are poisonous to our constitutions, 
and that a stranger who would go to Norfolk at this season would be 
reckoned a viad, and certainly a dead man. To turn men who have 
been basking in the shade for two months, and never exposed to the 
sun, — to turn such men, at a m,inute's warning, into soldiers, and re- 
quire them to march with a musket on their shoulders and a knapsack 
and four days' provisions at their backs, beneath this torrid sky, is to 
sign their death-warrant. Rely upon it, that the working of this cam- 
paign is against the faction which has plunged us all unprepared into 
this disastrous contest. The express who brought up our executive 
orders had not as much money as would pay for the hire of a horse. 
Twelve shillings lawful money would have been enough ; instead of 
which he was famished with a poicer to impress, and actually took the 
only horse of a very poor man in this neighborhood. Things are 
drawing to a head. 

" I am much concerned at what you tell me respecting our friend 
Mr. Lloyd. I am truly sorry to hear of his attack, which the delicacy 
of his frame renders more alarming. Pray present me in terms of the 
most unaffected regard and respect to. him and his lady. I regret the 
want of that sort of personal acquaintance with Mrs. Quincy that 
would entitle me to speak of her and to her in such language as my 
inclination prompts. She has my every good wish 

" Let me hope that you will cease to resemble Horace's old usurer, 
even in one particular, and give yourself to that society which has so 
many and such great demands upon you. 

" In the hope of seeing you in the course of the summer or autumn, 
I am, dear sir, with the highest esteem, yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke." 



LETTERS FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 335 

The Same to the Same. 

" Roanoke, August 30, 1813. 

" Dear Sir : — A long time has elapsed since a letter passed be- 
tween us. Without stopping to inquire who wrote last, I must in- 
dulge myself in congratulating you on the late glorious success of the 
Spanish arms in Biscay, and on the probable expulsion of the French 
from the Peninsula. This event is pregnant with the most important 
consequences. It would be impertinent in me to dilate on them to a 
pereon of your political knowledge and sagacity, but I cannot forbear 
naming one which touches ourselves more immediately. It may dis- 
pose our wretched Ministry to a serious endeavor at peace ; for it wiU 
certainly shake in some degree their blind faith in the fortunes of 
Bonaparte. From such men little good can be expected, under any 
circumstances ; but should they restore the blessings of peace to the 
country, it may be the means of averting incalculable mischief Did 
you read Mr. Monroe's Report on Webster's motion, and compare it 
with the documents ? How admirably the letter to Barton of July 
14, 1812, tallies with the character given of it in page 8 of the Re- 
port ! and how Avell the reasoning in page 9 et seq. is supported by the 
British ' Declaration,' and by Russell's letter of May 2.5, 1812 ! The 
incongruity between Mr. Monroe's affirmation (in page 8) and the_/ac< 
(letter of July 14) seems not to have stnxck the attention of our edi- 
tors. It is a most barefaced thing. Such is the degraded state of our 
country, that derision only is excited where indignation was wont to 
be roused. 

" I suppose you are apprised of the deadly feud between M. and 
Armstrong. The partisans of the former keep no terms in speaking 
of the latter. There is no measure to their obloquy, if a great deal 
of truth mixed with some falsehood may pass by that name. It is, 
however, plain that the Cabinet dare not displace Armstrong. He is 
now gone on to ' organize victory ' in Canada. What an admirable 
opportunity for some Villiers to bring another Bayes on the stage ! 
' Thunder and Lightning, by General D. R. W.' * 

" The transactions of the last Congress have certainly weakened in 
a great degree the confidence of many well-meaning people in the 
Administration. I have observed with great pleasure the altered ton". 
of the majority. The Hector is entirely laid aside, and they are forced 
patiently to submit to hear many galling sarcasms and yet more gall- 

* David R. Williams, of South Carolina. See, ante, pp. 178, 276. He had 
been appointed a Brigadier-General, — one of the "political generals" of that 
time. 



336 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ing truths from tlie minority, who have asserted with a manly spirit 
their parliamentary rights. The war is so detested hereabouts that 
the under-spurleathei-s of the ministry are obliged to encourage their 
followers witli tlie hope of a speedy peace. Our men in Norfolk are 
treated most barbarously. The commissariat and medical staff are 
upon tlie worst possible footing ; and the French and Jews, of whom 
the trading population is composed, practise the vilest extortion upon 
their defendei-s, who, poor fellows ! are compelled to sell their pay at 
forty per cent discount to obtain necessaries. The whole country 
watered by the rivers wliich fall into the Chesapeake is in a state of 
parahjxis. We in this quarter are sending our wheat to Fayetteville, 
on Cape Fear River ^ to exchange it for salt, for which we have to pay 
at home fifteen shillings a bushel, lawful money. In short, the distress 
is general and heavy, and I do not see how the people can pay their 
taxes to both governments. When that operation commences, the 
discontent which has been so long smothered by a large portion of 
the people will break forth to the consternation of their rulei-s, whom 
they will lay upon the shelf with very little ceremony. It is only 
by obtaining entire control over the j)ress south and west of Virginia 
(as well as in that State), and persuading the country that you and I 
and some others were the cause of all their difficulties, by encouraging 
the British, that they have been able to support themselves. But this 
delusion, like every other, must have an end. They will, however, 
find less difficulty in getting up some new imposture, than in devising 
ways and means. 

" You consider yourself in retirement within an hour's ride of the 
metropolis of New England, whilst I am three days' tedious journey, 
over miserable roails, to the only spot in the State that deserves the 
name of a town, and that epithet will hardly apply to Its present stag- 
nant and deserted condition. I am, indeed, liors du monde, as well as 
hors du combat. It is to be hoped that a very few weeks will restore 
you to the society of your friends in Boston, whilst I have before me 
a long and dreary winter, intennipted only by the sordid cares of a 
planter. The variety and vexatious character of these Interruptions 
can only be conceived by him who has been subjected to them. Thej 
remind me of Cromwell, when he turned farmer at St. Ives ; for without 
vanity I may compare myself to what Oliver was then, and may with 
truth declare, that my ' mind, superior to the low occupations to which 
I am condemned, preys upon Itself Sometimes I have thought of a 
certain mcmoire pour servir, etc. ; sometimes of a ' letter.' Meanwhile 
week slips by after week, and month follows month, and notliing is done. 



LETTERS FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 337 

" One of the blessings of this war is, that I can procure none but 
French paper to write upon, and am even ghid to get that, wretched 
as it is. I had a letter from Tudor about a week ago, with which I 
was much pleased. Be assured that his mother and myself are fully 
sensible of the claims which both yourself and Mrs. Quincy have upon 
his gratitude, and consequently upon ours. 

" I would be glad to know how you like your new occupation of 
farmer; what quantity of land you cultivate, and with what success. 

" I am, with the utmost sincerity, yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke." 

Thk Same to the Same. 

" KoANOKE, October 18, 1813 
" Dear Sir : — The delay in your reply to my light letter is amply 
compensated by the interesting views which you have given me of a 
subject, in comparison with which all others o? a, public nature dwindle 
into insignificance. As far as I can see, I perceive no variance in our 
opinions. I am not a man to put reliance on paper bulwarks when 
attacked by cannon and the bayonet. The parchment in the Rolls 
office I presume has undergone no erasures nor interpolations, (to 
ante-date or post-date it was unnecessary,) but the Constitution is 
changed. It can never get back to what it was. Old age can as soon 
resume the freshness and agility of youth. Not, however, that it was 
ever in my eyes that model of perlection which so many have pro- 
nounced it to be. You know I was an Anti-Federalist when hardly 
breeched. I did not then comprehend why I disliked the new system, 
but now I know that no such system can be good. Governments made 
after that fashion must have faults of their own, independent of such 
as are incidental to the nature of the institution, and perhaps insepa- 
rable from it.* To fit us, they must grow with our growth, and whilst 
they stubbornly protect the liberty of the subject against evei-y attack, 
whether from the one or the many, must possess the capacity to adapt 
themselves, at a minute's warning, to the unforeseen emergencies of the 
state. I see nothing of this in our system. I perceive only a bundle 
of theories (bottomed on a Utopian idea of human excellence) and 
in practice a corruption the most sordid and revolting. We are the 
first people that ever acquired provinces, cither by conquest or pur- 
chase (Mr. BLlckstone says they are the same), not for us to govern, 
bat that they might govern us, — that we might be ruled to our ruin by 

* Daniel Lambert measured, when christened, tor his wedding suit. 
15 T 



338 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

people bound to us by no common tie of interest or sentiment. Biit 
such, whatever may bo the incredulity of posterity, is the fact. Match 
it, if you can, in the savage laws of Lycurgus, or the brutal castes of 
Hindostan. 

" I will congratulate you on the accession of Austria to the cause 
of the Allies, although I confess my hopes are not high. Yet I look 
to the plains of Silesia and the Bohemian mountains for my deliver- 
ance from the incubus that has been weighing down my heart for many 
a long year. 

" In answer to your most kind and flattering questions, I must tell 
you that it is so, because a Southern proprietor is a poor devil, and his 
overseer a prince. I had to discard one the other day for malversa- 
tion and peculation in office, — a small affair compared with what we 
wot of in the ' great vulgar and the small ' in the city of O.* and its 
dependencies. I wish you could have heard two worthy neiglibors 
cautioning me against a contest at law with an overseer as a ' tremen- 
dous business, where, whatever may be the merits of the case, the em- 
ployer is sure to be cast.' I knew, too, that they were right. Does not 
this fact throw great light on the state of society and manners ? If a 
sagacious historian could stumble on it ten thousand years hence, it 
would give him a juster notion of what we are than a hundred vol- 
umes of ' Notes on Virginia.' Hoc opus, — the disease is not cuta- 
neous, it is in the bones and the marrow, and there is nothing in our 
system to regenerate itself. We must pass from anarchy and forrup- 
tion to military despotism. There is not a third alternative, as much 
as we have dabbled in political trigonometry, — no ' middle and most 
safe path.' There are no redoubts and fortifications within and be- 
hind which the citizen can find protection, — nothing to qualify or 
check in the remotest degree the power of the chief, whoever he may 
be, or whatsoever title please his ear. The country is tabula rasa. 
When once the liberty of the citizen Is broken, like an army routed 
on the plains of Poland, we have no shelter, no refuge, but in the 
clemency of the victor. The pendulum vibrates ft-om anarchy to 
despotism. 

" The manner in which you speak of my son warms my heart to- 
wards you. I want to know your children, that I may love them. 
His intention of leaving college springs from the noblest motive 
My brother was not an economist, and he emancipated his slaves. 
Mrs. R., Tudor's mother, sustained this spring a heavy loss by fire ; 

* Sic in the original. Referring, doubtless, to some forgotten nickname for 
Waihington. 



LETTERS FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 389 

and he knows that, whilst scoundrels have been holding me up to 
the nation as a British pensioner, they chuckle at the thoughts of the 
difficulties into which they knoio the times and my remote position 
from my property have involved me. Could I look on slaves as mere 
property, the means of extrication were obvious and easy ; but I have 
indulged in a hope that they should never know another taskmaster. 
To visit your counti) lies very near my heart. That the prejudice 
which once existed there against me should be obliterated or succeeded 
by opposite (perhaps not more just) sentiments, is a subject of real 
gratification to me. I shall be proud, if, on an acquaintance which I 
am resolved to make with them, I shall be able to maintain my place 
in the good opinion of your countrymen. A few days since, I bad a 
most severe affliction in the shape of rheumatism, which deprived me 
for a time entirely of the use of my limbs. I can now hobble about 
my solitary cabin. I forgot to add that I shall not indulge Tudor in 
his amiable desire to leave College before he graduates. ■ 

" I fear I am too late for the post. Believe me, dear sir, most truly, 
and with great regard, yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke. 

" I have a brother at Norfolk. In the regiment to which he is at- 
tached three hundred and twenty-four are sick. The hospital holds, 
by cramming, sixty. The poor creatures are dying like sheep, — rag- 
ged and without a blanket." 

The Same to the Same. 

"Richmond, December 11, 1813. 

" Dear Sir : — Your valued letter was forwarded to me, a few days 
ago, at this place, where I have been just a month. But the night be- 
fore it arrived, talking over the state of affairs with an old ii-iend, we 
fell into the same train of thinking with yourself on the consequences 
of the present war. Without the same minute knowledge which you 
possess on the subject of New England, we both inferred that the war 
would eventually become less unpopular there, from its operating as 
an enormous bounty upon your agriculture and manufactures ; and 
my friend undertook to predict that, by the time toe sickened of the 
contest, you would support it. 

" It is rather more just than generous in you to triumph over us; 
for be assured our sufferings are extreme. No State in the Confed- 
eracy has paid so dearly for the war whistle as the Ancient Dominion. 
Perhaps you will say, none deserved to pay more severely ; but re- 



340 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUIXCY. 

member that our daughter, Kentucky, has been selling her whiskey 
and meat and meal and horses, and enjoying the chase of her favorite 
red game, whilst our only source of supply has been a little stale pa- 
triotism ; and even in that staple commodity we arft almost driven out 
of the market by her and her sister States. 'T is true we drive a lit- 
tle trade in tobacco, which pays for about the hundredth part of the 
dry goods which we import land-wise from the North. The balance is 
made up in specie ; so that our banks, once the richest in the Union 
in that important article, are nearly drained of their last dollar, and, 
so far from being able to lend the State the amount of its quota of the 
direct tax, they are impoi-tuning payment of former advances to the 
sum of nearly four hundi'ed thousand dollars, when our treasury has 
not an unappropriated cent. Do you wonder at this, when I state It 
as a fact, that the straw of a crop of wheat, near market, is worth more 
than the cjrain ! and that flour, so far from being reckoned a luxury, 
as with you, is purchased by some planters as a cheaper food tor their 
horses and oxen than oats or Indian corn ! these last bearing a good 
price for the consumption of our towns. This relief, however, extends 
only a few miles around Richmond, Norfolk, and Petersburg. 

" It appears to me that if England can (as she must, if the war con- 
tinues) succeed in driving the American navigation off the ocean, and 
destroying the nursery of our seamen (the fishery and coasting-trade) , 
it will not be a bad exchange for Canada, — supposing her to lose It. 
We have been, from the breaking out of the war of the French Rev- 
olution to the date of the Embargo (December, 1807), her most for- 
midable commercial rival. Your ships, which once ' vexed every sea,* 
under-freighting even the penurious Hollander, are, I belli ve, not 
(like their hardy navigators) long-lived. Seven years, I think, are 
threescore and ten to them. The seamen who have left their Euro- 
pean masters for our service will sail under the Russian or some other 
neutral flag. In short, I can see no motive in an able English Admin- 
istration for making peace with us. My only trust Is in their folly, — 
for, thank God, their Castlereaghs and Princes Regent are at least as 
low in the scale of Intellectual beings as our Monroes and Presidents. 

" I concur with you most cordially on the subject of this most de- 
testable and unnatural war, — not to be matched except by the war 
of Loi d North's government against our liberties ; and even that was 
waged on motives less base than those which prompted the present 
accursed contest. That was a question concerning which honest men 
might differ. Not so this. Mark me, I speak of pereons having ac- 
cess to correct mformation. On this subjev.-t I am glad to find on© 



LETTERS FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 341 

righteous man on our side. I mean Frank Key, who says : ' Tlie 
people of Montreal will enjoy their firesides for this, and I trust 
for many a winter. This I suppose is treason, but, as your Patriot 
Henry said, " If it be treason, I glory in the name of traitor." I liavi 
never thought of those poor creatures without being reconciled to auj 
disgrace or defeat of our arms.' 

" As to the war in Europe, I have sad foi-ebodings, notwithstanding 
some of my friends, men of much better information than myself, and 
especially on European affiilrs, are quite sanguine. Well may tht 
tyrant rely upon his fortune. The ball that destro}'ed Moreau did 
him better service than his whole train of artillery besides. I considei 
that a victory would have been dearly purchased by the Allies at tht 
price of his loss. I seem already to feel ' the wind of that blow whici 
is to prostrate Europe at the feet of the modern Zlngls.' 

" By tills time you are quietly fixed in your town residence, and I 
have no doubt return to the opes et fumnrti strepitumque Romce with 
as much pleasure as you bade them adieu in the spring for your pa- 
ternal shades. You are not now procul negotiis, but you have every 
other requisite which the poet deems indispensable to happiness ; and 
even that is always within your reach. A ride of eight miles buries 
you in the solitudes of Quincy, whilst I have a weary journey of more 
than three days before I can reach my desolate habitation ; and when 
there, I am shut out from all intercourse with the rest of the world, 
except through the tedious process of letter-wi-Iting. 

" I dare hardly trust my pen on the subject nearest my heart, — my 
son. I am wrapt up in that boy, and it gives me pleasure to reflect 
that he is near enough to you to avail himself more frequently of the 
goodness of yourself and Mrs. Quincy towards him. Your kindness 
to this child will never be forgotten by us all. Your name and that 
of Mrs. Quincy is never mentioned by his mother or his brother with- 
out gratitude and respect for your generous protection extended to 
Tudor. May he live to make you the only suitable return, by fulfil- 
ling your flattering expectations of his future character. 

" Bleecker is indeed all that you say of him, and mo7-e. He did 
write to me, and a most welcome letter it was. 

" I had like to have forgotten to tell you that your University is 
decried in this quarter. The charge of Socinlanism we once dis- 
cussed together ; but a heavier one is now advanced against you, — 
at Ici'.ast according to the maxims of this calculating age. 'TIs said 
that your Principal and Professors take a pride in the extravagance 



342 LIFE OP JOSIAH QUINCY. 

of the students, and encourage it, whilst Yale zealously inculcates the 
sublime truths of ' Poor Richard's Almanac' Be this as it may, some 
of our Southern youths have left a great deal of cash at Cambridge, 
and brought away nothing valuable in return for it. We are so much 
poorer in this quarter than you wealthy Bostonians, that we smart 
under an expense which you would scarcely feel. Whilst the stu- 
dents are treated as gentlemen, everything like profusion should be 
discountenanced by the Provost and his associates. I deemed it proper 
to apprise you of the fact that such reports are circulated, and with 
some industry. They have been the means of sending some of our 
young men to Yale instead of Harvard College. 

" This letter is already too long to admit a word on the subject of 
the Speech from the Throne, even if it were worthy of a thought. I 
think it completes the anti-climax of the last five years. To mention 
in such a communication such names as Johnson, &c. ! Except that 
it is liberal of jjraise to others, and somewhat scanty to himself, it 
might have been written by Don lago. It is in his style. ' The im- 
perious obligations of duty forbidding him to rout the enemy ' in the 
Jield, he proceeds Hudibrastically to beat them in detail upon paper ! 
Ubi lapsi! Quid fecbnus ! 

" My best wishes attend you and all that are dear to you. How 
many children have you ? Tell me their ages and names. I want to 
know all about you, for I am in truth, with the most affectionate re- 
spect, yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke." 

Whether there were any substantial grounds for these com- 
plaints of extravagant expenditures at Cambridge, I cannot say. 
That the President and Professors took a pride in them, if they 
existed, was of coui'se a weak invention of the enemies of the 
College. Mr. Randolph, however, had some personal reasons for 
feeling sore on the subject. Young Randolph, though entirely 
free from vice and dissipation, according to the testimony of all 
the men of his time, was lavish in hia expenditures, and, in 
particular, he inherited or shared his uncle's love for fine horses. 
Mr. Randolph did not forbid the indulgence of this taste in 
the young man, — indeed, he was probably rather proud of the 
figure he made by it, — but the expense was a source of serious 
inconvenience to him, his money income being very dispropor- 
tionate to his nominal fortune. This letter was doubtless writ- 
ten under some irritation of mind from this cause. 



LETTERS FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 343 

John Randolph had a very great abhorrence of debt, and a 
very just sense of its degrading effect on the character. On one 
occasion in Congress, he suddenly interrupted himself in a speech 
on some other subject, and exclaimed : " Mr. Speaker, I have dis- 
covered the philosopher's stone. It is this, Sir, — Pay as tou 
GO ! Pat as you go ! ! " His opinion on this subject is thus 
expressed in a letter to my father, which has been destroyed as 
containing matters too private for the public eye : — 

" The muck-worm, whose mind ' knows no other work than money- 
keeping or money-getting,' is an object of pity and contempt. But I 
hold it essential to purity, dignity, and pride of character, that every 
man's expenses should bear a due relation to his means and prospects 
in life, and conceive few habits to be more destructive of all that is 
noble and manly about us, than a habit of profusion exceeding beyond 
all bounds those prospects." 



344 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

1814-1815. 

Removal from Pearl Street. — War Alarms at Quincy. — The Hcs- 
SAKs. — Letters of Randolph. — Continued Discontents. — The 
Hartford Convention. — Peace of 1815. — Rejoicings in Boston. — 
Political Changes consequent on the Peace. — Death t)F Tudor 
Randolph. — Last Letter of the Randolph Correspondence. 

IN the year 1805 my father left the cheerful house in Pearl 
Street where he had passed so many happy years. On the 
northern frontier of the estate, facing on Oliver Street, lie had 
built two houses, into one of which he removed his family. 
The situation was then a commanding one. The harbor was in 
full view in one direction, and in the other the prospect extended 
over the southern part of the town to the Brookliiie hills. The 
house itself was not as large or commodious as the one she had 
left ; but my mother readily acquiesced in the change, the rather 
that she declined mingling in general society almost entirely 
during the winters my father was away. She made herself 
amends, however, by shortening the winters and lengthening the 
summers as best she might, and giving as many months as possi- 
ble to her beloved country home at Quincy. Speculation and 
improvement, as it is called, which had already begun to lay 
waste the pleasant places in which Boston then abounded, in due 
time laid a ruthless hand on the slope of that one of the three 
hills on which sat the graceful town where my father's estate 
lay. The prospect from the Oliver Street house was first of all 
shut out by brick walls. Afterwards the terraces which climbed 
the hillside were levelled, the old elms felled, the blue-jays and 
golden robins driven from their ancient haunts, and a brick court 
called Quincy Place reigned in their stead. That part of the 
town, then and for many years later a creditable region to live 
in, inhabited by citizens of eminence and wealth, was for a long 



WAR ALARMS AT QXnNCY. 345 

time given over to the very poorest of the population, and at the 
time I am writing it is in the very aci, of being removed and cast 
into the sea, in obedience to the demands of trade. The house 
in Pearl Street remained standing until 1845, when it gave place 
to the granite warehouses known as " ^uincy Block," of which I 
have already spoken. 

The happy summers at Quincy, hoviever, were somewhat dis- 
turbed, during the years that the war lasted, by alarms, or appre- 
hensions of them, of the enemy. Ther^ was a current belief 
that the British, should they propose • ipaking an attack on 
Boston, would land on my father's estate o;, thereabouts, and so 
take the town in flank. There were probalbly no good grounds 
for this opinion, as it is not likely that the British would attempt, 
with any force they could command on this{ side the Atlantic, 
when they had their hands so full on the other, to march through 
a thickly settled hostile country, intersected by streams, and with 
points all along their route capable of defence. The opinion was 
sufficiently prevalent with the authorities, however, to induce 
them to station a body of militia on the left bank of the river 
Neponset, separating Quincy from Dorchester, which was se- 
lected as the first point of defence should such an invasion be 
attempted. This circumstance materially increased the uneasi- 
ness inseparable from the exposed situation of the family at 
Quincy. As I have already related, every ship that enters or 
leaves the harbor can be seen from the windows of the house. 
And as the triumphant entry of Hull in the Constitution, after 
her victory over the Guerriere, had been discerned from that 
post of observation, so was the departure of Lawrence in the 
Chesapeake on his fatal quest of the Shannon, — doomed to 
"give up the ship," but only with his life; and with the telescope 
" the meteor-flag of England " could be seen from time to time 
flying a-t the masthead of men-of-war that prowled about the 
mouth of the harbor; so that it was no idle fear which sug- 
gested the probability of a midnight visit from a party of foragers 
or pillagers to that solitary shore. 

One Sunday there was an alarm that the enemy had landed at 
Scituate, a dozen miles away. The news was announced in the 
15* 



346 LIFE O.i' JOSIAH QUINCY. 

meeting-house during Divine service. The congregation was dis- 
missed at once, and the -"illage was all astir with excitement. 
The bell rang, the drums beat to arms, and the volunteer com- 
panies marched to meet the enemy. It is unnecessary to say 
that they did not find him. The improbability of a military 
force landing nearly twenty miles from the intended object of 
attack, and marching to.vards it through a populous enemy's 
country, was overlooked under the excitement of sudden danger. 
The old people who ret lembered the days of the Revolution add- 
ed to the fever in men's minds, and yet more in women's and 
children's, by stories of British ravages and outrages in that 
old time. This panic, however, soon passed away, though the 
feeling of possible danger was always present, and a state of 
preparation kept i p. I suppose it was on the Sunday following 
this false alarm, that the militia companies, in uniform, attended 
service to return thanks for their escape fi'om the assaults 
of their enemies ; though it may have been after some more real 
and nearer danger. But the circumstance made a deep impres- 
sion on my young mind by the delightful variety it gave to the 
usual monotony of Sunday. 

My father, too, opposed as he was to the war, yielded to no one 
in determination to defend the soil of Massachusetts should it be 
invaded by an enemy. He assisted in the formation of a fine 
troop of volunteer cavalry, called the Boston Hussars, consisting 
chiefly, if not entirely, of Federal gentlemen, of which he was 
elected ca|)tain. They wore a splendid uniform, made after the 
pattern of one of the French regiments of the Imperial Guard, 
their dislike to Bonaparte and all his works not including his 
taste as to military costume ; and, being well mounted, they 
formed the finest troop ever seen in New England before or 
since. Captain Quincy was afterwards promoted to the com- 
mand of a squadron of horse, consisting of the Hussars and the 
Dragoons, with the rank of Major. He used to be concerned 
lest the enemy might land between Quincy and Boston, and thus 
cut him off from his command ! Happily no such calamity oc- 
curred, and all his campaigns were confined to Boston Common 
and to an occasional escort of honor. On one occasion, when he 



THE HUSSARS. 347 

was to perform this service for Governor Gerry, one of the 
Denaocratic newspapers announced that " Captain Quincy is 
going with his Hussars to bring Governor Gerry to town, peace- 
ably if he can, forcibly if he must! " The older inhabitants of 
Boston yet speak of him mounted on his fine cliarger, Bayard, a 
beautiful animal, white as snow, his great personal advantages of 
face and figure set off by his superb uniform, as the finest sight 
of man and horse they remember to have seen. When all pros- 
pect of actual service was ended by the Peace of 1815, the Hus- 
sars were disbanded, the expense of keeping up the company 
being very great, and Major Quincy's military career came to an 
end. His horse Bayard was sold, and subsequently arrived at 
promotion which is worth the telling. One day my father came 
home in high good-humor, and asked my mother what she sup- 
posed had become of Bayard. " I have not an idea on the 
subject," said she. "Guess!" said he. "I can't guess," said 
she ; " perhaps the king of Hayti has got him," — that potentate 
being at the time much " bruited in men's minds." " But you 
have heard ! " said he. " Never a word." " Well, you have 
guessed right. He now belongs to the king of Hayti." The 
purchaser exported the horse to Cape Haytien on speculation, 
wliere he was bought for the black King Christophe, and is said 
to have been the favorite cliarger of his sable Maj(;sty. 

I will insert in this place the letters my father received from 
Mr. Randolph during the year 1814. 

Mk. Randolph to Mr. Quincy. 

"Richmond, Jan. 7, 1814, Friday. 
" Dear Sir : — On the subject of the war, I believe there is not a 
man in the United States who agrees more entirely with you than my- 
self. As the matliematicians say, our opinions coincide. The late 
news from Leipsic has put the despondent Federalists here on the 
house-top ; and in another week (perhaps) they will be in the cellar 
again. For my part I every day see less and less cause to hope for a 
restoration of the blessings we once enjoyed ; and this opinion is 
founded at least as much upon the character of the party in opposi- 
tion as upon that of those who administer, and their adherents who 
support or suffer, the government. The dictatorship {as by law estab- 



348 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

■lisked) has not created half the sensation here as did the fall of sugar 
from thirty-five to twenty dollars per hundred-weight ; or the rumor 
that Mr. King was nominated Minister to tlie Court of London. All 
heads here are agog for peace, and if Messrs. M. and M. give it to us, 
we shall ' ask no questions ' on tlie subject of the treasure, blood, and 
honor lost in this unnatural and hellish contest. 

" My dear sir, with all our sins it must be allowed that we super- 
abound in the first of Christian and of moral virtues, — charity. 
We are so full of the ass's milk of human kindness, that we shall 
soon learn to speak of Judas Iscariot as an unfortunate man. Such is 
the language which our candor prompts us to apply to Bidwell, Wil- 
kinson, etc., etc. ; and Federalists, ay, good Federalists too, do not 
hesitate to say of our precious rulers that Mr. M. is now seriously dis- 
posed for peace with England ! Yet, if perforce they are driven to a 
cessation of active operations, they will have an armed truce, — a 
peace of restrictive measures, — ' a peace like a war.' 

" The Continental System is to supply the place of arms, as passion, 
according to the crown lawyers, sometimes does in case of treason. 
But I must have done. Present my best wishes to Mrs. Q,ulncy, and 
be assured that you will do me great injustice should you doubt the 
sincerity of the regard and esteem with which I am, dear sir, yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke." 

The Same to the Same. 

" Richmond, Jan. 29, 1814. 
" Dear Sir : — I should have acknowledged your letter of the 1 5th 
several days ago, but I received at the same time the communication 
which you had taught me to expect from Mr. Lowell. This had been 
so long on the way (having been addressed to Roanoke) that I found 
it necessary to write a hasty reply, lest I should Incur the Imputation 
of insensibility to Mr. Lowell's very polite and obliging attention. I 

therefore resolved to write ' to-morrow.' You know the rest 

After my last to you was despatched, I was not without apprehension 
that I had been too hasty in that ' reproof to which you so politely 
submit. The fact is, that you touched upon my leading infirmity, — 
my fond attachment to my nephew. This leads me sometimes to sus- 
pect that I play the fool on this subject, and seriously to fear that the 
praise which has been showered on the lad may be of lasting disservice 
to him through life. I have seen the effects of puffin^l on some young 
men who otherwise would have been respectable, but who were 
thereby converted into the most disgusting coxcombs Imaginable. I 



LETTERS FROM MR. RANDOLPH. 349 

had rather see Tudor a dull man without pretensions, than one of 
these over-educated and over-travelled youths, — such as the apostle 
of Democracy in Philadelphia, for instance, whose skin a member from 
New Jersey lately stripped over his head. It was a cruel punishment 
for beino- an ass. But I will not insult my son with the comparison. 

" I have seen Mr. Otis's motion, and I assure you that no occurrence 
since the war has made so deep an impression upon me. It has had 
the like effect upon all seriously thinking people with whom I have 
conversed. What a game of round-about has been played since I was 
initiated into the mysteries of politics ! I recollect the time when with 
Mr. Otis State rights were as nothing in comparison with the proud 
prerogative of the Federal government. Then Virginia was building 
an armory to enable her to resist Federal usurpation. You will not 
infer that I attach the least blame to Mr. Otis ; far from it. I rejoice, 
on the contrary, to see him enlisted on the side of the liberty of the 
subject and the rights of the States. Pray give me some light on the 
subject of your proceedings. It was always my opinion that Union 
was the means of securing the safety, liberty, and welfare of the con- 
federacy, and not in itself an end to which these should be sacrificed. 
But the question of resistance to any established government is always 
a question of expediency ; and the resort ought never to be had to 
this last appeal, except in cases where there is reasonable prospect of 
success, and where the grievance does not admit of palliative or tem- 
porizing remedies. The one is a case to be decided by argument, 
the other by feeling. Verily, Mr. M.'s little finger is thicker than the 
loins of Lord North. 

" I Avish you would occasionally enclose me the Weekly Messenger, 

when it contains such pieces, for instance, as ' The Feasts of the Poets.' 

With best wishes to Mrs. Q. and your children, I am, dear sir, most 

sincerely yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke." 

The Same to the Same. 

" Richmond, Feb. 8, 1814. 

" Dear Sir : — Certain reports here, to which you cannot be a 
stranger, have caused much speculation and some uneasiness here. 
Pray give me a little light respecting the serious intentions of the Op- 
position in Massachusetts. Rash counsels are not always, if ever, wise. 
I trust we shall hold together, and live to reap the fruits of the late 
glorious events in Europe, on which I cordially congratulate you. 

" I would hke my nephew to see my reply to Mr. Lowell's letter on 



350 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the subject of tlie University. Excuse this scrawl. I am, dear sir, 
sincerely and most faithfully yours, 

" JoHX Randolph of Eoanoke." 

The Same to the Same. 

" Richmond, March 1, 1814. 

" Many thanks to you, my dear sir, for your information. It is 
highly interesting. I shall make no comment upon it, except to ex- 
press a hope that Opposition with you will furnish its enemies with no 
handle against them. They will be delighted with some tub for the 
popular whale against the next election. I am informed that gov- 
ernment have no other hope of pecuniary supply except from Bos- 
ton ; and that they confidently rely upon twenty per cent discount 
countervailing the patriotism of your moneyed men. 

" I have just learned that Carlisle College is broken up by a con- 
scription of Messrs. Binns, Duane, and Snyder. I believe this is the 
triumvirate by which Pennsylvania is governed. What intelligence 
for a parent, who fondly believes that his son is prosecuting his studies 
under some reverend divine, to hear that he is on the frontiers of 
Canada, a common soldier, ' a mere machine of murder,' destitute 
perhaps of the necessaries of life. Thank Heaven my son Is under 
the protection of Governor Strong and the Legislature of Old Massa- 
chusetts Bay* "Wliy did you leave out that word Bay in your style 
and title? I like it. It was therein 1775 

"Tobacco has sold here as high as S 13.10 per hundred-weight. 
This gives some relief to the planter ; but on the whole we are vexed 
and oppressed in every shape that the tico governments can devise. 
" I am, dear sir, with great esteem and regard, yours, 

" John Randolph of Roanoke." 

The Same to the Same. 

" Richmond, March 22, 1814. 
♦' Dear Sir : — Let me return you my sincere and hearty thanks 
for your letter (of the 13th). It has afforded me great pleasure, as 
well on private as public account, — to use the fashion of speaking in 
this calculating age. You have judged rightly, in my poor opinion. 
Like you, I feel a veneration for the place of my residence, because it 
never belonged to any but the aboriginal proprietors and my ancestors, 
from whom it has descended to me in the direct line. The curse of 

* Jlr. Randolph always directed his letters to my father, " Boston, Massa- 
chusetts Bay." 



LETTERS FROM MR. RANDOLPH. 351 

slavery, however, — an evil daily magnifying, great as it already is, — 
embitters many a moment of the Virginian landholder who is not 
duller than the clod beneath his feet. 

" I made a little excursion last week to the seat of my ancestors 
in the maternal line, at the confluence of James and Appomattox 
Rivers. The sight of the noble sheet of water in front of the house 
seemed to revive me. I was tossed in a boat for three miles, and 
sprinkled with the spray that broke over her. 

" The scenes of my early youth were renewed. I do not wonder at 
the attachment of you New England men for your rocky shores and 
inlets and creeks, — that you cleave to them heedless of the siren song 
that calls you to the Western wilderness. The sight of the broad bay 
formed by the junction of the two rivers gave a new impulse to my 
being ; but when the boat struck the beach, all was sad and desolate. 
The fires of ancient hospitality were long since extinguished, and the 
hearthstone cold. Here was my motlier given in marriage, and here 
was I born, — once the seat of plenty and cheerfulness, associated with 
my earliest and tenderest recollections, now mute and deserted. One 
old gray-headed domestic seemed to render the solitude more "sensible. 

" The tombstone of the first BolHng who came to this country, about 
the period of the Restoration (1660), and who died (after marrying a 
granddaughter of Pocahontas) in 1709, is. yet in very tolerable pres- 
ervation ; the stone is cracked, but the armorial bearings and epitaph 
quite fi'esh. Nothing, however, can be more melancholy than the 
aspect of the whole country on tide-water, — dismantled country-seats, 
ruinous churches, fields forsaken and grown up with mournful ever- 
greens, — cedar and pine. But I am prosing. 

" I said you had chosen wisely, — I mean for yourself and your 
children. But in your country the state of society is not changed, 
the whole fabric uprooted, as with us. Here the rich vulgar are 
everybody and everything. You can almost smell the ' rum and 
cheese, and loaf, lump, and muscovado sugar,' out of which their 
mushroom fortunes have sprung, — much more offensive to my nostrils 
than ' muck or merinos.' These fellows will ' never get rid of Black- 
friars '; and they make up in ostentation for their other deficiencies, 
of which they are always conscious, and sometimes ashamed. 

" I am under great uneasiness for Tudor. There is no field for him 
in his native country. Would you have him return here, attend a court 
every week, ride more miles than a post-boy, sleep two^ perhaps three, 
in a bed, and barely make a support for himself and his horse? Such 
is the life of our country lawyei-s, who eke out their scanty gains by 



352 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

some paltry speculation at the sLerifF's sales. Here a. young man is 
shut out from the bar, and, indeed, the practice even to Wickham 
and his associates is far from being easy or lucrative. The afternoon, 
and the Sabbath are often broken in upon by the importunate client. 
New York, I suppose, affords the best field for a young man who 
will not lay aside civilization, and herd witli the Grundys and Clays. 
Country life with us has few charms. One must give up society, and 
in a degree literature also. For after you have read your old books 
(if you have them to read) you can get no new ones. 

" I have renewed my acquaintance (It was a slight one) with Horace 
this winter. Much as I admli-e him, I am yet better pleased with some 
of his imitators (not ' a servile herd '), among whom I reckon Warren 
Hastings, Pope, and the Horatii of Piccadilly. But I am so little of a 
pedagogue, — I ought to say a scholar, — that I prefer Lord Byron to 
all the poets from Virgil to Bavius. I have just finished his ' Bride of 
Abydos,' which some wiseacre of a printer advertised as the ' Bridge of 
Abydos,' and led me to inquire of Tudor after it under that title, — a 
whimsical mistake ; the ' Tui*klsh Tale ' appended to the title forbade 
all thought of the bridge of Xerxes, or of Leander's substitute. Lord 
Byron is a man of great powers, but they are not under his own con- 
trol : they govern him. The dedication to Lord Holland brought 
to my mind most forcibly some passages in the ' English Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers.' His Lordship (Holland) must have much of the 
spirit of forgiveness. I doubt her Ladyship. 

" What may be done In Europe I know not, but the ' Southern 
States ' can take no share In the loan. Our banks were never so 
much pressed, and another year like the last will produce the most 
distressing embarrassments to them. Some of our people, particularly 
in my quarter of the country, are rich ; but they were burnt a little 
with the first loan, and prefer to give one hundred and twelve for our 
new bank stock, after all the exactions of our Legislature, made more 
in the spirit of a Turkish Pacha than a free government. 

" I see that Mr. Ainhi Dexter * has not been adroit enough to take in 
you Yankees. The Cliief Justice returned a few days since from Wash- 
ington. He brings, however, nothing, except that Beau Dawson Is on 
his last legs, — all the powers of nature, the vis vitce, gone. Another of 
the war-makers is about to follow old Smille to his dread account. 

" Adieu, dear sir. My best wishes and regards attend you and 

* The celebrated Samuel Dexter, who had separated himself from the Fed- 
eralists during the war of 1812, and thus incurred the suspicion and censure 
of the opponents of the measure. 



LETTERS FROM MR. RANDOLPH. 353 

yours. If I were ' my own man,' as Jerry Sneak says, I might per- 
haps surprise you in your rural shades of Quincy ; but if the war has 
affected your Income, what must it have done with mine, whose estate 
(never under good management) depended for its revenue on open 
and direct export abroad, and chiefly to England? 

" I am, with the most sincere respect and regard, dear sir, yours, 
"John Randolph of Roanoke. 

•' At Washington they (you know who they are) are very sanguine 
respecting Plumer's election.* But if am to believe the papers, which 
1 find some difficulty in doing on such subjects, Mr. Gilman is re- 
chosen. I wish you would tell me what are the prospects of Mr. Dex- 
ter and his new friends in Massachusetts. 

" Your quotation from Horace reminds me of a jeu cf esprit of our 
barrister Wirt on Mr. Wickham's offering to their brother Hay either 
torn of a dilemma. 

' Wickhara one day tossed Hay in court 
On a dilemma's horn in sport ; 
Jock.t rich in wit and Latin too, 
Cries, " Fenum habet in cornu." ' " 

The Same to the Same. 

" Roanoke, Virginia, July 1, 1814. 
" Dear Sir : — It would require an essay to answer your inquiries ; 
however, I will try what can be done within the compass of a letter. 
Before the Revolution the lower country of Virginia, pierced for more 
than a hundred miles from the seaboard by niuiierous bold and navi- 
gable rivers, was inhabited by a race of planters, of English descent, 
who dwelt on their principal estates on the borders of those noble 
streams. The proprietors were generally well educated, — some of 
them at the best schools of the mother country, the rest at William 
and Mary, then a seminary of learning, under able classical masters 
Their habitations and establishments, for the most part spacious ana 
costly, in some Instances displayed taste and elegance. They were 
the seats of hospitality. The possessors were gentlemen, — better- 
bred men were not to be found In the British dominions. As yet 
party spirit was not. This fruitful source of mischief had not then 
pjisoned society. Every door was open to those who maintained the 

* As Governor of New Hampshire. William Plumer, a seceding Federalist, 
was defeated by John Taylor Gilman. He had been elected in. 1812, and was 
again in 1816. 

t Old John Warden, a Scotch schoolmaster. 



354 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

appearance of gentlemen. Each planter might be said, almost with 
out exaggeration, to have a harbor at his door. Here he shipped his 
crop (tobacco), mostly on his own account, to London, Bristol, or Glas- 
gow, and from those ports received every article of luxury or neces- 
sity (not raised by himself) which his household and even his distant 
quarters required. For these a regular order was made out twice a 
year. You may guess at the state of things when a bill of exchange 
on London for half a crown was sometimes drawn to pay for a dinner 
at the ordinary. Did a lady want a jewel new-set, or a gentleman his 
watch cleaned, the trinket was sent home. Even now the old folks 
talk of ' going home to England.' 

" Free living, the war, docking entails (by one sweeping act of As- 
sembly), but chiefly the statute of distributions, undermined these old 
establishments. Bad agriculture, too, contributed its share. The soil 
of the country in question, except on the margin of the rivers, where 
it luas excellent, is (originally) a light, generous loam upon a sand ; 
once exhausted, it is dead. Rice never constituted an ol)jcct of cul- 
ture with us. The tide swamps — a mine of wealth in South Carolina 
— here produce only miasma. You will find some good thoughts on 
this head, and on the decay of our agriculture generally, in our friend 
J. T.'s [John Taylor of Caroline] whimsical but sensible work ' Ara- 
tor.' 

" Unlike you, we had a church to pull down, and its destruction 
contributed to swell the general ruin. The temples of the living God 
were abandoned, the glebe sold, the University pillaged. The old 
mansions, where they have been spared by fire (the consequence of 
the poverty and carelessness of their present tenants), are fast filling 
to decay ; the families, with a ievf exceptions, dispersed from St. 
Mary's to St. Louis ; such as remain here sunk into obscurity. They 
whose fathers rode in coaches and drank the choicest wines now ride 
on saddle-bags, and drink grog, when they can get it. What enter- 
prise or capital there was in the country retired westward ; and in 
casting your eyes over the map of Virginia, you must look between 
the North Mountain and a line drawn through Petersburg, Richmond, 
and Alexandria for the population and wealth of the State. The 
western district is almost a wilderness. The eastern tract, from the 
falls of the great rivers to the shore of the Chesapeake, — the region 
above all others in United America the best adapted for commerce, — 
becomes yearly more deserted. Deer and wild turkeys arc nowhere 
so plentiful In Kentucky as near Williamsburg. I say ' the shore of 
the Chesapeake,' because our Eastern Shore [the two counties that lj« 



LETTERS FROM MR. RANDOLPH 355 

Deyond that bay] must be excluded from this description. There fhe 
old Virginian character is yet (I am told) to be found in its greatest 
purity, although before the Revolution it was a poor, despised re- 
gion. Here are the descendants of those men who gave an asylum to 
Sir W. Berkeley during Bacon's rebellion. The land, although thin, 
bears a good price, and is inhabited by a hospitable, unmixed people. 
On this, the western shore, land within two hours' sail of Norfolk may 
be bought for one half the money which the same quality would com- 
mand one hundred and fifty miles from tide-water. The present just, 
necessary, and glorious war has not, as you may suppose, served to en- 
hance its price. Perhaps, after all, you may say that I reassert a fact 
when asked for the cause. The country is certainly unhealthy, — more 
so than formerly ; but this is only one of the causes of its depopula- 
tion. Bears and panthers have within a few years made their appear- 
ance in the neighborhood of the Dragon and Dismal Swamps. 

" You are once more enjoying the ' uda mobilibus pomaria rivis ' 
of Quincy. When you count over the oleniis uxores inarid (if the 
dignity of a merino will brook such an epithet), and reckon your 
lambs before yeaning, you are not likely to be interrupted by anv 
unpleasant Transatlantic recollectious. Do you know that you have 
written a letter of three pages without a syllable on the subject of 
' Foreign Relations ' ? This bespeaks the quiet of the heart within. 
You and I, whom the delators of the post-office are ready to swear 
they have detected in carrying on a treasonable correspondence', to 
be writing about ' old times ' that ' are changed,' — ' old manners gone,' 
— tobacco and wool ! . . . . The smaller critics would perhaps remind 
me that Horace's flock were of the hairy, or no-wool breed, and that 
they must have been goats. But that is by no means a necessary con- 
sequence. Did not Mr. Jefferson import sheep without wool (sent 
him, I presume, by some brother savant of the Academy of Lagado), 
and does Captain Lemuel Gulliver give us any reason to doubt that in 
point of antiquity that illustrious people flourished long before the age 
of Augustus? This valuable breed of sheep, although destitute of 
wool, had a double allowance of horns, — there being four to each head, 
two of them projecting like the fabled unicorn's. With these the ram 
actually tore out the entrails of a poor child in Washington, and killed 
it. (See Malthus on Population.) There is an apparent levity in 
this letter Avhich is foreign to my real temper, at this moment espe- 
cially. I do but mock myself. ' It may deceive all hearts save that 
within.' If you see Tudor, tell him his brother is better, much better. 
" I am, dear sir, with great regard and truth, yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke. 



856 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" We are to have peace forthwith. The hostages are withdrawn. 
The pacification of Europe settles the question of impressment. ' It 
has vanished into thin air.' 

" July 4, 1814. 

" P. S. Since writing the above I have been ruined by an inunda- 
tion of the river on whose banks my lands lie. It rises beyond the 
Blue Ridge, indeed in the Alleghany Mountains ; passes through the 
counties of Montgomery and Botetourt under its right name ; issues 
from the mountains incog, under the appellation of Staunton ; here re- 
ceives the Little Roanoke ; and on its junction with the Dan, about 
twenty miles below, resumes its true name, which it retains during the 
remainder of Its course to the Sound. 

" There have been heavy rains in the mountains, for we have not 
had more than enough. For twenty years there has not occurred 
such a calamity to the low grounds of this river. I have lost upwards 
of three hundred and fifty thousand tobacco hills, and a great deal 
of Indian corn, wheat, and oats." 



/■ 



The years of the war passed slowly and heavily over New 
England. Gloom and discontent pervaded all classes of people, 
always excepting the office-holders and contractors. As an abso- 
lute stop was put to commercial pursuits, then the chief occupa- 
tion of the inhabitants of the seaboard towns, agriculture and the 
mechanic arts necessarily suffijred from the paralysis of the great 
industry on which they mainly depended for profitable employ- 
/ ment. There can be no doubt that a very wide-spread disaffec- 

tion towards the general government prevailed among the most 
substantial and virtuous of the citizens of the New England 
States. They regarded the pretexts on which the war had been 
declared with contemptuous incredulity, believing them to be but 
the thin disguise of its real object. That object they believed 
to be the gratification of the malignant hatred the slave-holding 
States bore towards communities of free and intelligent labor, by 
the destruction of their wealth and prosperity. To this end the 
majority of the people of New England believed that the Con- 
stitution had been violated and perverted from its original pur- 
pose. Undoubtedly there were many among them who deemed 
that they were thus released from the moral and legal obligations 
imposed upon them by the sanction they had given to the national 



THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. 357 

compact, and that it was their right, and might become their 
duty, to consider how much longer they should suffer themselves 
to be oppressed and ruined by a government which had forfeited 
its lawful claim to their obedienceX It is no part of my business 
to censure or defend these opinioris, but only to record the fact 
of their existence and of their extensive influence over men's 
minds. But these extreme opinions and violent passions, suggest- 
ed and exasperated by positive suffering and actual distress, were 
not shared by the leading men of the Federal party, as a general 
thing, notwithstanding the railing accusations which have been 
brought against them. Their policy was to restrain the pop- 
ular feeling of indignation against the national government, and 
to keep it within bounds, in the hope that time would bring a 
peaceful remedy of grievances and wrongs. But they knew that 
the public voice which demanded of the Legislatures of the New 
England States some concerted and effectual action for the vin- 
dication of those wrongs and the redress of those grievances, 
was as earnest as it was emphatic, and that there was danger of 
open resistance if it were not listened to ; and hence came the 
famous Hartford Convention. 

It has been the ill-fortune of that much abused assembly to be 
accused of designing an organized resistance to the, general gov- 
ernment, and a separation of the New England States from the 
Union, when in fact its purpose was to delay, at any rate, and if 
possible to defeat, such a catastrophe, ''xj^othing could be more 
gratuitous than the obloquy, under which the eminent and ex- 
cellent men who went up to "Ftartford on that errand lived and 
died, of having planned ,lhe dissolution of the Union. Their 
pui'pose was to prevent its being dissolved, if they could. And 
for this reason the Legislatures, when tliey came to elect dele- 
gates to the Convention, were very careful to choose men of 
known moderation of views and tried discretion of conduct. It 
was for this reason, my father believed and said, that he was 
passed by on that occasion. The prudent Federalists, when 
called upon to face this emergency, were afraid of his impetuous 
temperament and fiery earnestness. They di-eaded lest he might 
express too well the spirit of those whose urgency extorted the 



358 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Convention. One useful piece of service, however, he rendered 
to the Convention, by making an accurate analysis of the effect 
which the slave ratio of representation had had upon the Presiden- 
tial elections and upon all the most important doings of Congress 
since the close of Washington's Administration. This is contained 
in a long letter to Mr. George Cabot, afterwards the President 
of the Convention, dated December 9, 1814, written just before 
it met, at the request of that eminent gentleman. It undoubtedly 
helped to guide the action of the Convention in regard to that 
important matter. '^ He always spoke of the Hartford Convention 
as a tub to the whale, as a dilatory measure to amuse the mal- 
contents, and keep them quiet under inaction, until events might 
make action unnecessary. One day, while public attention was 
absorbed by speculations as to what the Convention, then sitting 
with closed doors, would do or propose, a friend met my father 
in the street, and said anxiously to him, " What do you suppose 
will be the result of this Convention ? " "I can tell you exact- 
ly," was his reply. " Can you, indeed ? " exclaimed the other. 
" Pray tell me what it will be." " A great pamphlet ! " he 
responded. And it was even so. Whether the calm and tem- 
perate address of the Convention to its constituent Legislatures, 
deprecating resistance even to uriconstitutional and unlawful 
national action excepting in the last extremity, and the measures 
it suggested, of which the most material was to urge an amend- 
ment of the Constitution abolishing the slave representation, by 
making the number of voters the basis of representation, would 
have been sufficient to satisfy and restrain the people of New 
England had the war and all the mischiefs it brought with it 
lasted much longer, it were now only curious to inquire ; for the 
peace which followed close upon the adjournment of the Conven- 
tion effectually allayed the apprehensions to which its meeting 
had given rise, together with the irritations which had called 
for it. 

The fall of Bonaparte, although it occasioned as genuine joy 
to New England as to the mother country herself, did not bring 
with it absolutely unalloyed satisfaction. There was reason to 
apprehend that the English Administration, triumphant over its 



PEACE OF 1815. 359 

gigantic foe, its army and navy released from the incessant 
service of so many years, might concentrate the whole force of 
the empire upon the power which it regarded as a volunteer 
ally of its mighty enemy, and administer an exemplary chas- 
tisement/) No doubt many Englishmen felt, with Walter Scott, 
that " it was their business to give them [the Americans] a fear- 
ful memento that the babe unborn should have remembered," 
and there is as little question that infinite damage might have 
been done to our cities and sea-coast, and to the banks of our 
great rivers, had Great Britain employed her entire naval and 
military forces for that purpose. But, happily, the English peo- 
ple had had their fill of fighting for the time, and wisely refrained 
from an expenditure of blood and gold which could have no per- 
manent result, and would only serve to exasperate passions and 
prolong animosities which it were far wiser to permit to subside 
and to die out. And, indeed, it is not unlikely that the attention 
of the English people liad been so absorbed by the mighty con- 
flict going on at their very doors, that they had not had much to 
spare for the distant and comparatively obscure fields across the 
Atlantic. The American war was but a slight episode in the 
great epic of the age. At any rate, the English ministry were 
content to treat with the American Commissioners at Ghent, and 
to make a peace which left untouched the pretended occasion of 
the war. The question of impressment, the only pretext for the 
war, was passed over in expressive silence, and peace was con- 
cluded, leaving " Sailors' Rights," the great watchword of the war 
party, substantially as they stood before hostilities began, except- 
ing that our fishermen were deprived of the valuable privilege 
they then enjoyed of catching and curing fish on the shores of 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A conclusion, indeed, in which noth- 
ing was concluded! It was no unpoetical justice that Mr. Clay, 
who had been so forward in forcing the Madison Administration 
into the war, should have been one of the Commissioners who 
virtually confessed its failure to accomplish its ostensible purpose 
by signing this treaty of peace, — "a peace," as Sheridan said of 
that of Amiens, " which every one must be glad of, but no on© 
could be proud of!" 



360 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

However, there was small disposition to criticise the terms of 
the peace when the glad tidings first readied our shores. Both 
political parties were equally rejoiced to hear that the war was at 
an end, though for very different reasons ; and tiie joy was the 
greater because tlie news was entii'ely unexpected. Only the 
night before, a very experienced and sagacious gentleman had de- 
clared, at my father's house, that the war would probably last for 
years to come. On Monday, the 13th of February, 1815, an 
express arrived at the office of the Columbian Centinel, in the 
incredibly short space of thirty-two hours, from New York, bear- 
iiig a letter from Mr. Jonathan Goodhue, an eminent merchant 
of that city, telling of the arrival of the British sk)op-of-war 
Favourite, under a flag of truce, bringing an English and an 
American messenger, charged with the custody of the treaty al- 
ready ratified by his Britannic Majesty. Tlie bells were at once 
set a-ringing as the readiest way of spreading the joyful news. 
I remember that a next-door neighbor, Eliza Cabot, afterwards 
well known by her writings, and for her marriage with Charles 
Follen, a faithful servant of liberty in the Old AVorld and in the 
New, came breathless with haste into our house, and asked my 
mother if she knew why the bells were ringing. " For fire, I 
suppose, of course." "For peace! peace! peace!" exclaimed the 
messenger of glad tidings of great joy, in an ecstasy of that en- 
thusiasm which made her presence so magnetic and her society 
so charming, in her old age as in her youth. It was a day 
given up to rejoicing which came from the heart ; for there was 
no one, unless it were here and there a contractor, who was not 
sincerely and cordially glad that the war was over. Salutes 
were fired, the bells rang out their merriest peals, the volunteer 
companies and their bands filled the streets with such martial 
show and sound as they could furnish, the school-boys had a 
holiday, the whole population was in the streets, and even party 
spirit slept for that day, and Federalist and Democrat clasped 
ea:!: other's hands like ancient friends. The wharves, so long 
deserted, were again thronged, and the melancholy ships that rot- 
ted along them were once more bright with flags, and gay with 
streamers. Parties of sailors on sleds drawn bv fifteen horses ■ 



PEACE OF 1815. 861 

each, and with Peace in large letters on the hat of the foremost 
man, made the town ring with their huzzas. And before night 
had fallen, ci'ews were engaged, and preparations for voyages in 
forwardness. Commerce plumed her white wings afresh, so long 
clipped and crippled, and prepared to take her flight to all quar- 
ters of the globe. These rejoicings extended all along the sea- 
board, and stretched far into the inland, making glad all hearts, 
and none more glad than those of the promoters of the war 
in high places and in low. 

Mr. Quincy, at the opening of the session of the Senate on 
that auspicious morning, moved the resolutions of thanksgiving 
proper to so glad an occasion, and was made Chairman of the 
Committee of Arrangements for the celebration of the event on 
the appropriate anniversary of Washington's birthday. That 
too was a day of .universal joy, more regulated in its expression, 
perhaps, and tempered by religious services of thanksgiving, but 
flowing as genuinely from the heart as on that first memorable 
day of unlooked-for gladness. A procession under military es- 
cort, of which a main feature was a representation of the vari- 
ous trades, the men working at them as they went through the 
streets upon platforms drawn by horses, conducted the authori- 
ties of the State and the town to the Stone Chapel, where fitting 
religious and musical services were had. A dinner at the Ex- 
change Coffee-house, at which Mr. Harrison Gray Otis presided, 
succeeded in the due order of the festivities, and the night was 
brilliant with fireworks and a universal illumination. 

And so the war of 1812 ended, amid a general joy, — not for 
what it had brought to pass, but because it was at an end, and 
the industry of the Free States freed from its restraints and its 
burdens. The necessary provision for the payment of the inter- 
est of the national debt the war had created, and for its gradual 
extinguishment, soon renewed the old party divisions, though 
conducted with somewhat less of acrimony. The questions on 
which the politics of the period immediately following the war 
turned were almost purely financial. The Democratic party, 
still controlled by the Southern influences which compelled the 
war,, sought successfully to make Northern commerce pay for 
16 



362 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUENCY. 

the war which had crippled and all but crushed it, through 
the custom-house. The Federalists, led by Mr. Webster, op- 
posed the imposition of further burdens upon the reviving 
trade of the North, and urged the continuance of a propor- 
tion, at least, of the direct taxes which the war had called for. 
Mr. Calhoun, however, prevailed, and the tariff of 1816 was 
adopted, which called into existence the great manufacturing 
industry of the North, the success of which, and the prosperity 
attending it, soon changed the political economy of its inventor, 
and called for the remedy of NulHfication, to be followed in 
due time by Secession and Rebellion. In these discussions, 
however, Mr. Quincy took no very prominent part, although he 
shared in the doubts entertained by the Federalists generally 
as to the wisdom of a protective policy. He feared that its effect 
would be to change the character of the population of New Eng- 
land, and assimilate it to that of the great manufacturing centres 
of Europe, 'j The experience of half a century has shown these 
fears to have been without substantial foundation. The Federal- 
ists, consisting to a great extent of educated and reflecting men, 
were too apt to draw from the experience of the Old World in- 
ferences as to the operation of political institutions and policies 
in the New, without making sufficient allowance for the infinite 
difference in tlie circumstances under which the experiments 
were tried. Holding to the opinion that " History repeats her- 
self" (which she never does), they dreaded the renewal of the 
scenes which she describes in her tale of the ancient and modern 
republics, without sufficiently considering how much wider was 
the stage on which the American drama was enacted, and how 
much broader the influences which had formed the actors in it. 
It was their little faith in ideas that caused their disappearance 
from the world of American politics, and it was his unbounded 
faith in ideas that gave to Thomas Jefferson, in spite of all his 
"faults of character and his inconsistencies and errors of public 
conduct, that controlling power over the minds of men which did 
not die with him, but is giving direction and shape to the history, 
not only of his own .country, but of all Christendom. 

On the '18th day of August, 1815, young Randolph died in 



DEATH OF TUDOE RANDOLPH. 363 

England, at Cheltenham, whither he had gone in search of the 
health he had lost. His death was a severe blow to his uncle, 
who looked upon him as the last representative of his line of the 
Randolph^, and who had every reason to believe that he would 
do credit to the name. The following letter closes the corre- 
spondence with my father, which was mainly owing to the resi- 
dence of the young man at Cambridge. One or two letters of a 
later date will appear in their proper place. 

Mr. Randolph to Mr. Quixcy. 

" Richmond, Dec. 7, 1815. 

" My dlar Sir : — Your letter, postmarked November 9, was for- 
warded to me from home, and received last night too late to answer 
it. 1 learned with the most unfeigned regret that you have been vis- 
ited, and that not lightly, by one of the heaviest calamities that flesh 
is heir to.* But you have remaining ofispring to hand down your 
name, a,nd to exercise your aflFections, while I am left desolate and for- 
lorn. You will readily conceive that my sympathy in your loss is not 
diminished by the circumstance of meeting on my arrival here the 
faithful servant who attended my child to Europe. He arrived about 
a fortnight ago from Livei'pool, with the effects of his late young mas- 
ter, who died at Cheltenham on the 18th of August. This man's father 
was body-servant to mine, and accompanied his master to Quebec, by 
the way of Niagara and Montreal, soon after the annexation of Can- 
ada to the British Empire, when Albany was a frontier post. When 
my fiither mortgaged his whole estate, real and personal, to secure a 
debt of his brother to a London house, Syphax alone was excepted, — 
an honor of which he yet boasts. His wife was a favorite and confi- 
dential servant of my mother, born on my grandfather's estate. She 
died a. few weeks after her mistress, in 1788. Stephen, her youngest 
child was then at the breast, and a nursling with my youngest sister. 
They were of the same age. His fidelity and attention to Tudor was 
beyond «jxample, and is attested by many Virginia gentlemen, several 
of whom were at Cheltenham and have lately returned home. You 
may judge of my attachment to him from these circumstances. 

" In the summer a letter to my fi-iend, Mr. Dandridge, Cashier of 
the Bank of Virginia, addressed to Charlotte Court House, was sent 

* EefeiTing to the death of two infant sons of my father, which took place in 
the course of 1815. 



364 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

to Charlottesville (near Monticello), whltlier my letters are not unfre- 
quently sent, as letters for that place are to Charlotte C. H., even 
with the treasury frank upon them. Charlottesville is, by mail route, 
one hundred and ninety miles from me, but in practice as far as Liv- 
erpool or London. When I did get the letter (which was'mere acci- 
dent) I was occupied by thoughts exclusive of business. Soon after I 
left home for this place, where I could best attend to such aifairs 

" Mr. Eppes does not dispute my election. He has long ago aban- 
doned the contest, declaring ' that his friends had deceived him.' On 
examination, my majority was more than doubled. It is expected that 
he will succeed Mr. Giles in the Senate. 

" December 8. — As was expected, Mr. E. was elected by a great 
majority to fill the vacant seat of Mr. Giles. Men of all political par- 
ties agree that he is indebted to me for his seat ; so that, if I am not 
great myself, I am the cause of greatness in others. 

" My best regards to Mr. Lloyd. Of your kindness to my poor boy 
I shall ever entertain the most grateful remembrance. I know that, 
whilst he could feel, he felt upon this subject as he ought. When I 
reach the city of W. I hope to hear from you. Meanwhile, believe 
me, with great esteem and regard, dear sir, yours, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke. 

/ " In memory of Theodorick Tudor Randolph, Esquire, younger son 
of the late Richard Randolph, of Bizarre, Virginia, who departed this 
life at this place, on the 18th day of August, 1815, in the twentieth 
year of his age, this stone is placed by his afflicted uncle, John Ran- 
dolph of Roanoke. This amiable and interesting young man fell a 
victim to the consequences of severe study, which compelled him to 
leave College about twelve months before his decease, and try the 
efiect of relaxation and change of climate. In testimony of his 
merit as a scholar, the Corporation of Harvard L^niversity, Cam- 
bridge, North America, conferred upon him, at their annual Com- 
mencement, held on the 30th day of August, 1815, the degree of 
Bachelor of Arts, ignorant that he was then removed beyond the 
sphere of human applause or human censure. 
"Pray suggest any alteration that seems proper." i 



EXPERIMENTAL FARMING. 365 



CHAPTER XV. 

1813-1823. 

Ten Years of Leisure. — Experimental Farming. — Letter from Judge 
Peters. — The Summers at Quincy. — Ex-President Adams. — Trum- 
bull's Picture. — President M(jnroe's Visit. — Separation of Maine 
FROM Massachusetts — Mr. Quincy dropped for the State Senate. 

— Speech in Faneuil Hall. — Returned as Representative. — Con- 
vention OF 1820. — The Missouri Compromise. — Mr. Dowse of Ded- 
HAM. — Letter from John Randolph. — Mr Dowse in Congress. — 
His Letters. — Mr. Quincy Speaker. — Judge of Municipal Court. 

— His Law of Libel in the Maffitt Case. 

THE ten years of Mr. Quincy's life from 1813 to 1823 were 
years of comparative leisure. Though he was a member 
of the General Court for the chief of the time, his duties in that 
capacity were confined to a few months of the year, and were not 
of a very engrossing nature. ; In 1815, after the declaration of 
peace, nef^ removed from Oliver Street, and took a lease of a 
house in Summer Street, one of the handsomest and most com- 
modious in Boston, with ample stable-room and every conven- 
ience that was then thought essential to a gentleman's town 
residence. Here the winters were spent. The summers, which 
were always lengthened out at both ends as much as possible, 
were passed at Quincy. After leaving Congress, he took the 
management of the farm into his own hands. He was an en- 
thusiast in whatever he undertook, and he entered into fanning 
with all the zeal of his ardent temperament. His agricultural 
experience, like that of most gentleman farmers, was rather profit- 
able to others than to himself. He was full of experiments, 
which, though not eminently successful as to the lucre of gain, 
were of great value to the farming interests of his neighborhood 
and of the State. He brought improved implements to the 
notice of the unbelieving farmers round about. He set an ex- 
ample in the matter of root culture, and of the succession of 



8G6 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

crops, which redounded to the general benefit, if not to his own 
personal advantage. And latterly he introduced the custom of 
soiling or stall-feeding of milch cows, and argue-d its merits in the 
agricultural papers of the day. These essays he collected and 
republished in his old age, as his last contribution to agriculture. 
One of his favorite schemes was the substitution of hawthorn 
hedges for the old-fashioned rail-fence of New England. They 
kept themselves in repair, he would say, and so saved the ex- 
pense of renewing the fences of dead wood, which wa^ a material 
item in the cost of farming. At one time liis whole farm was 
fenced only with this verdurous wall, and the system worked 
exceeding well as long as the cattle were kept in the stalls. 
But when, in 1823, he was obliged to give up the supervision of 
his paternal acres for that of the city of Boston, and the tenant 
to whom he let them insisted on pasturing his cows, the hedges 
were found not to be equal to the occasion. A hedge might be 
sufficient to restrain the wanderings of the civilized cattle of 
England, which had been accustomed to be led into fat |)astures 
for generations ; but it was otherwise with the hardy kine of 
New Hampshire and Vermont, whence the herds of the lowland 
country were chiefly recruited, which, brought up to browse in 
the woods and on the mountains, made little account of any ob- 
stacle that offered itself in the shape of green leaves and twigs. 
The thorns they seemed to regard as an appetizing condiment, — 
a kind of sauce piquante, — thrown in to increase the pleasure 
of the meah So, in the end, rail fences had to be provided to 
protect the hedges from the beasts. However, his experiment 
settled the hedge question as far as New England was con- 
cerned./ 

The following lively letter from Judge Richard Peters of 
Philadelphia was occasioned by my father's experimenting with 
the different kinds of hedges. Judge Peters was a man of 
great humor, and many of his facetiae were current in conver- 
sation fifty years since ; and it is likely some of them may still 
survive, as is the fate of such airy trifles, affiliated upon succeed- 
inw wits. 



LETTER FKOM JUDGE PETERS. 367 

Judge Peters to Mr. Quincy. 

"Bklmont, Penn., January 24, 1813. 

" Dear Sir : — I recently received very favorable accounts of the 
Newcastle thorn, and take the liberty of repeating my recommenda- 
tion of it. I allow all you say about the species you have being good 
enough ; but there are so many things worse than had enough, that I 
do not see why we may not, now and then, indulge ourselves in the 
best we can get. Your career will be soon run out, and there is time 
enough to order McMahon to put you up in March a few jTor experi- 
ment. 

" I thought you would have died a peaceful political death, but I see 
it is not in your nature. So much the better; for death-bed sayings 
are the most noticed and remembered. I once thought that Parce 
puer stimulis et fortius utere loris should be the minority motto, but I 
have long believed myself mistaken. It is not to your opponents that 
your protests are useful, but to those whose returning reason and pa- 
triotism will, one day, profit by them. You have anticipated the 
month of March by coming in like a lion ; but it is not likely that you 
will go out like a lamb. I think that time will mend us (if chaos does 
not come too soon) : but our progress will be slow. When our regen- 
eration will be completed I do not undertake to prophesy. 

" I was much pleased (as the scriveners say, inter alia^ with your 
philippic against the delectable clause intended as a substitute for 
young conscripts. The trouble I have in hearing controversies about 
recruits would, indeed, have been lessened. I am annoyed more than 
the enemy has hitherto been by our pin-feather army. I had cp-avely 
to determine, against a learned argument of Mr. Dallas, that a wid- 
owed mother was a parent (the surest sometimes of the two), and 
had a legal as well as a natural relationship to her son. 

" You eluded on your way to Washington all my inquiries, but I 
bear you no malice. I see j^lainly that you are not hedging there, 
w hatever you do at home. I read many of the Congressional speeches, 
but not regularly. Dead votes, against reason and patriotism, give 
me the hyp. But I turn myself round, and recover as soon as I can. 
Many of you, I perceive, are uncalculating sticklers for truth, and 
expect to find it where reasonable men would not look for it. You, 
indeed, sometimes rouse the men of the woods, and may say, ' Non 
canimus surdis ; respondent omnia silvce.' But there it ends. 

" I began this letter with no other view than to remind you of the 



368 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

hedge thorn. Judging from your speeches, I avoid political discus- 
sion, lest you should think me a milk-and-water politician. So be it, 
for I live on meagre diet. The less I think on the politics of the day, 
the more happy I am. I do not fear to look at truth in your concave 
mirror, but as my glass has discharged the greatest portion of Its -sand, 
I seek the sunny sides of prospects, when the too-frequent clouds will 
permit. I nevertheless enjoy the dusky scenes of a Salvator Rosa, 
but most prefer the brilliant skies and illuminated landscapes of a 
Claude. You may pity me for th's light propensity, but happy is he, 
in evil times, who can look on fraua, rebellion, guilt, and Cassar ' in the 
calm lights of mild philosophy.' One is, however, like Garagantua in 
Rabelais, obliged sometimes to tickle one's self to produce a smile. 
I often feel bitterly our follies and disgrace. If I fly to bagatelles for 
amusement, I do not sympathize the less with those who have only rea- 
son and patriotism to oppose to superior and impenetrable numbers. 

" I have sufliciently puzzled you how to decide, whether the gan-u- 
lous or scribulous senectus merits most the hunc tu Romane caveto. It 
is high time then to conclude, with very sincere assurances of the es- 
teem with which I am 

" Your obedient servant, 

" Richard Peters. 

" Before sealing my letter, a friend, who has lately visited New Eng- 
land, called on me. He describes your establishment at Quincy so as _ 
to interest me. He says you deserve, not a crown of thorns, but a 
chaplet of hawthorn-blossoms, for daring to enclose your grounds with 
anything but the dreary stone fences which disgust a Pennsylvanian. 
Your whole demesnes were eulogized so as to make us little stars 
hide our diminished heads. I hope the thorn will be the most promi- 
nent In my mischianza, and that you will. In your oblivion of the light 
and evanescent parts, not forget the Newcastle thorn. 'T is strange 
that I, who have not an enclosure other than of dead timber, should 
be anxious about your live fences. P jrhaps self-reproach for not in 
early life beginning and continuing such essential Improvements, 
which posterity would have thanked n.e for, has something to do with 
my desire to promote improvements In which you have engaged with 
commendable spirit. It seems, however, that we crow over you In 
some respects, for your buildings are composed of frail material, and 
your fences are indestructible. We have taken the opposite course 
But had our enclosures been made as durable as are our buildings, our 
triumph would have been more profitably complete. It is well we 
have something to boast of" 



THE SUMMERS AT QUINCY. 369 

So it fell out with my father's farming as it is apt to do with that 
of gentlemen who are not able or willing to give themselves entire- 
ly to the minute economies of the business, and are obliged to leave 
to others the small details, on a strict attention to which the pros- 
perity of farming, as of every other calling, depends. It gave 
him much amusement, but cost him much money, — more than it 
was at all convenient to him to lose. The only profitable manu- 
facture connected with his farm was one of salt, for which he es- 
tablished works along the length of his property on the sea-shore, 
and which made remunerative returns as long as the duty on salt 
was retained. His salt was always in particular request with the 
Cape Ann fishermen for curing their fish. But it was a pleasant 
life that he and his family led during those summers. The house 
was always filled with company. He delighted in exercising 
hospitality, and there was scarcely a Saturday in the year, in 
town or country, that was not solemnized by a regular dinner- 
party. Every afternoon in summer a succession of visitors 
thronged the house. In those days the universal summer disper- 
sion of the well-to-do inhabitants of the town had not set in. 
Very few of the Boston gentlemen had country-seats, and the. 
custom of exchanging their roomy and comfortable town houses 
for the narrow hospitalities of Saratoga and Ballston, then al- 
most the only places of summer resort, was far from general. 
Sea-bathing was an undiscovered luxury, and the mountains had 
not yet been invented. Tours were slow, tedious, and expensive, 
and a visit to Niagara was more of an event in life then than 
one to the second cataract of the Nile is now. People stayed at 
home in their pleasant garden-houses, and gave summer parties 
to each other and to the visitors from the South and from P^urope, 
who were always established in greater or less force in Boston 
during the hot months. The excursions which filled up the long 
afternoons left on their hands by the early dinner-hour of fifty 
years since often took the direction of Quincy. The neighbor- 
hood of Ex-President John* Adams undoubtedly increased the 
number of these pleasant visitors, as no stranger of condition 
ever can^e to Boston without seeking an introduction to so cele- 
brated a public man, and very few returned to town without 
16* X 



370 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

taking my father's house by the way. His own personal celeb- 
rity, however, and the pleasantness of his home and domestic 
circle, were attractive enough in themselves, witliout that ad- 
ditional inducement, to secure a continual round of company. 
He had his books mainly at Quincy, and the exigencies of a 
growing family made it necessary to provide a small building 
apart from the main house, where he kept his library, and 
where he spent the chief of his time when at home, and not en- 
gaged in looking after his laborers or in the society of his visit- 
ors. His library was large for that day, and considerable even 
for this, and contained a very competent collection of the classics, 
and of the English and French authors. His journal, whicli he 
kept with tolerable regularity during portions of these years, 
bears testimony to the regu^rity of his literary industry and 
th^. variety of his reading. /Law, ethics, Cieero, Lord Bacon, 
Madame de Stael, Colonial history, especially the part relating 
to the religious establishment, and the old English divines, made 
up a portion of his multifarious reading, often digested, analyzed, 
and commented upon. He also set down such anecdotes and 
bits of historical information as came to him in the course of each 
day, and particularly such as were communicated by Mr. Adams. 
Some of these may be worth recording, written down, as they 
were, fresh from the lips of the octogenarian statesman, although 
they may have already found their way into print ; and I shall 
insert tliera occasionally in their order. 

" December 4, 1818. —Rode to Quincy with W. S. Shaw and Colonel 
Trumbull, and dined with President Adams. Trumbull, a gentleman 
of the old school, greatly delighted at the patronage given by the na- 
tional Legislature to the series of his paintings ooniniemorating four 
great national events. The conversation turned on the character of Dr. 
Franklin. Adams said, that the suggestion made against Dr. Franklin, 
as not being hearty in his support of the Declaration of Independence, 
was a calumny. To his knowledge, he supported that measure at its 
earliest period, with energy and perfect devotion. Adams said, that 
he was present at the sittings of the Royal Academy of France, when 
Voltaire and Franklin both attended. As each appeared, the hall 
rang with acclamations. They approached each other. The cry was, 
* Let them embrace, let them embrace ! ' They accordingly began to 



EX-PRESIDENT ADAMS. 371 

hug and kiss. The room rang with, ' Behold, Sophocles and Solon are 
en)bracing each other ! ' " 

v." December 5. — President Adams came to town to view the ' Dec- 
larafion of Independence,' by Colonel Trumbull, now exhibiting at 
Faneuil Hall. President Adams, Trumbull, Prof. Farrar, Wm. S. 
Shaw,* dined with me. Colonel Trumbull said, that every portrait in 
his picture was taken from a real sitting of the individual, or from 
some existing picture of him, except that of Benjamin Harrison, which 
was only from general description, received fi'om his son, the recently 
distinguished General Harrison. Adams said, that the portrait bore a 
gen-eral resemblance, but was not sufficiently corpulent. He well re- 
membered, that, when engaged in signing the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, a side conversation took place between Harrison, who was 
remarkably corpulent, and Elbridge Gerry, who was remarkably the 
reverse. ' Ah, Gerry,' said Harrison, ' I shall have an advantage over 
you in this act.' ' How so ? ' said Gerry. ' Why,' replied Harrison, 
' when we come to be hung for this treason, I am so heavy, I shall 
plump down upon the rope and be dead in an instant ; but you are so 
light, that you will be dangling and kicking about for an hour in the 
air.'" 

I Avell remember being one of the party which accompanied 
Mr. Adams to see Trumbull's picture. Faneuil Hall was full of 
spectators when we arrived, and what impressed the scene upon 
my boyish memory was the respectful manner in which all the 
men took off their hats when Mr. Adams entered leaning on my 
mother's arm, and remained uncovered while he stayed. Room 
was made for him by common consent, so that he could see the 
pi'cture to the best advantage. He seemed carried back to his 
prime of manhood, and to the most famous scene of his life, and 
he gave his warm approval to the picture as a correct repre- 
sentation of the Convention. " There is the door." said he, 
" through which Washington escaped when I nominated him as 
Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army ! " This oicture 

* William Smith Shaw, Harvard University, 1798, was the nephew of Mrs. John 
Adams. He was the Private Secretary of Mr. Adams during his Presidency, and 
afterwards Clerk of the District Court of Massachusetts. He was known chiefly 
by the sobriquet of " Athenseura Shaw," from the zeal and assiduity with which 
he labored in founding and building up the Boston Athenseum, which may al- 
most be said to owe its existence to him. He died in 1826, ast. 48. 



372 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

must be always interesting as an authentic collection of portraits, 
and an accurate representation of the Hall of Independence; 
and it pretends to be nothing more./ At one time a shade of 
ridicule attaclied to this painting, because of John Randolph's 
splenetic description of it as "a great shin-piece! ")— a. most 
groundless sarcasm, as any one may see who wiir be at the 
trouble of counting first the heads and then the shins it portrays. 
That part of the subject is certainly as well managed as possible, 
if the venerable signers are to be allowed any legs at all. 

"Januai-y 9, 1819. — In conversation with William Sullivan. He 
dined yesterday in company with General Coffin * of the British 
army. Coffin said, that he had the command of the first boat (being 
then Lieutenant of a transport ship) which landed the advance of the 
first regiment of British grenadiers at the attack of Bunker's Hill. 
As the boat touched the shore, a three-pound shot from the American 
lines passed lengthways over the boat, touched not a man, and beat 
out her stern. Further service with his boat being thus rendered im- 
practicable. Coffin took a musket, joined the assailants, and was in the 
midst of the battle. He said that he had been since that time in many 
engagements, but never knew one, for the time it lasted, so hot and 
destructive. The anecdote proves what has been denied, — that artil- 
lery was used on the American side in the battle of Bunker's Hill." 

In the summer after his accession to the Presidency, Mr. 
Monroe made a tour through the Northern States. He was re- 
ceived everywhere with the respect due to the head of the nation, 
and Federalists united with Democrats in doing him honor. 
Party spirit, in those old shapes, seemed almost extinct, and " the 
era of good feeling" to be indeed inaugurated. On the 7th of 
July, 1817, he dined with Mr. Adams, and after dinner, accom- 
panied by his host, his suite, and the rest of the dinner-party, he 
paid Mr. Quincy an afternoon's visit. Bygones were bygones.) 
Mr. Monroe did not seem to remember that Mr. Quincy had 
]»alked him of the Lieutenant-Generalship and the command 
of the army, and Mr. Quincy had forgotten that he had suspected 
the little gentleman of mild exterior before him of designing to 

* General John Coffin was brother of Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, Bart. They 
were natives of Boston, and took service with the Crown at the time of the 
Revolution. 



SEPARATION OF MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 373 

use that power to destroy the liberties of his country. It was a 
lovely summer's day. The ros^a were still in bloom, and the hay- 
makinf^ was going on. I believe, however, that it must be con- 
fessed that my father had ordered a few loads of hay, which had 
been already housed, to be spread again at appropriate points of 
view, partly for the picturesque effect, but chiefly to afford the 
farm laborers an opportunity of seeing their President as he 
walked over the estate. After an animated and cheerful visit, 
the President returned to town, taking a last leave of his vener- 
able predecessor, not without signs of strong sensibility on both 
sides. 

The most important event in the history of the Commonwealth, 
during Mr. Quincy's service in the State Senate, was the separa- 
tion of tlie District of Maine from Massachusetts, and its erection 
into a sovereign State. Thirty years before, previously to the 
adoption of tlie Federal Constitution, this action had been con- 
templated ; but the time was not yet come when that dependency 
could well dispense with the fostering care of the parent State. 
Another generation found matters in a different condition, and 
Maine now conceived herself to have arrived at years of dis- 
cretion, and to be fully competent to set up for herself. A co- 
incidence of the interests of the two political parties favoi-ed the 
accomplishment of the measure at that time. The Democrats 
were in a small majority in the District, and the leading men 
among them hungered after the governorships and judgeships 
and senatoiships, and all the other prizes of local ambition of 
which they were deprived by the predominance of the Feder- 
alists in the entire State. The Federalists of Massachusetts 
proper, on the other hand, feared lest the Democratic majority in 
the District might so increase, or be so managed, as to overthrow 
their supremacy in the State. But though the leaders of the 
two parties were thus ready for the separation, it took some 
time to prevail upon the people even of Maine to co-operate 
cordially with them. The Federalists of Maine considered it as 
hard treatment that they should be left naked to their enemies 
by the withdrawal of the sheltering hand of the mother State, 
and they made a resolute stand against the m«;asure. It was first 



874 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

proposed in 1816, and most vigorously opposed by Mr. Quincy 
in the Senate. On one occasion his " Nay " was recorded alone 
against the otherwise unanimous voice of the Senators. He did 
not see how a State was strengthened by severing herself in 
twain, and held that such a loss of weight in the nation should 
not be incurred, excepting under the most imperative and un- 
avoidable necessity. That such an absolute necessity then ex- 
isted, was hardly pretended on either side. By this act Mas- 
sachusetts would reduce herself from a State of the first rank 
in the Union to one of the second, and yield to New York the 
headship of the opposition to the Southern predominance, led by 
Virginia, which she had hitherto held. As to the arguments 
urged in private by the Federal leaders, drawn from the benefit 
that would accrue to the party in the State from the separation, — 
that it would, in the words of one of the chief of them, " give us a 
snug little Federal State for the rest of our lives," — Mr. Quincy 
refused to consider them, when treating of a question of general 
and permanent importance, which should be settled on fixed 
principles, and not by partisan expediency. But he warned his 
party friends that they would find themselves mistaken in their 
calculations, and that the effect of the separation would be ex- 
actly the opposite of what they anticipated. And so it proved, 
as we shall presently see. 

An act was passed authorizing the holding of a Convention, 
and the taking of the sense of the people of the District on 
the subject. The Federahsts of Maine complained of unfair- 
ness in the method of doing this, the management being in the 
hands of the favorers of the partition. But notwithstanding 
this, allowing that these complaints were well founded, the 
majority in favor of the separation was but about fifteen hun- 
dred in a comparatively light vote. The scheme went over for 
that time ; but was a continued occasion of agitation in Maine, 
and of discussion in Massachusetts, until it was finally carried. 
The people of the District having, after two or three more trials, 
pronounced decisively in favor of separation, the question came up 
for final decision in 1819. Mr. Quincy again resisted the passage 
of the act, with all the energy of his character. He moved, 



DROPPED FOR THE STATE SENATE. 375 

first, that the act should not go into effect without having been 
first submitted to the people of Massachusetts ; and, secondly, 
this resolution having been negatived, that the votes of two 
thirds of the people of the District should be given in its favor 
before it should take effect. He then recapitulated his arguments 
against the measure in a speech of two hours' length, but all in 
vain. /The bill passed the Senate on the 15th of June, 1819, by 
a vote"~of twenty-six to eleven, and afterwards received the sanc- 
tion of the House by one of a hundred and ninety-thi-ee to 
twenty-seven. Mr. Quincy, to the end of his life, regarded the 
stand he had taken as to this matter with much satisfaction, and 
he was especially proud of his having stood alone against the ^ 
project in 1816. Talking once with Mr. John Quincy Adams 
on this subject, and referring to the circumstance of his single 
vote, Mr. Adams said, with a smile, " And that was not the only 
time, Mr. Quincy, that you played the part of Abdiel." 

Mr. Quincy's daring to differ from the leaders of his party on 
this point probably was the occasion of their dropping him from 
their list of Senatorial candidates for Suffolk County at the 
spring, election of 1820. \ His independence of action and out- 
spoken energy in debate had made his Federal compeers look 
upon him as one whose political zeal might outrun his discretion, 
and who could not be depended upon in every partisan emer- 
gency. And it is Jiot unlikely that the opinion they held of him, 
as one neither to hold nor to bind, stood in the way of his eleva- 
tion to the Senate of the United States, — a distinction to which his 
faithful services in the House of Representatives, at a most criti- 
cal period of our history, might not unreasonably have entitled 
him. I have in my possession a letter from Mr. Harrison Gray 
Otis, written in 1818, when Mr. Eli P. Ashmun contemplated 
resigning his seat in the Senate, to their common friend, Mr. 
John Phillips, strongly urging the claims of Mr. Quincy as Mr. 
Ashmun's successor, on the ground of his being the only man of 
the party who had subjected himself to a thorough and special 
training for public life. After speaking of the probability of Mr. 
Ashmun's resignatior. of his place in the Senate, Mr. Otis goes 
on: — 



876 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY, 

" Would not Quincy come '? And if he would, why should he not 
be supported? He is the only man among us who had intended a6 
initio to pursue politics as a profession, and who has qualified himself 
by hard study for that department. He is proverbially industrious, 
and though an occasional expression or two have served as catchwords 
to injure his popularity, I have no doubt that in this Senate he would 
soon effiice any petty prejudice existing against him, and be a very 
useful member. If you are of this opinion, you may easily ascertain 
his chance of success by touching a few persons lightly with the trac- 
tors.* But do not quote me, unless you mean to ruin the plan, — 
though I am perfectly willing my good opinion of him should be 
known, whenever it may be thought auxiliary to others. Pray mind 
this distinction." 

So that it is hardly possible that his name should not have 
been one of those taken into consideration on the several occa- 
sions of vacancies after his resignation of his seat in tlie House, 
and it is not unlikely that the choice of his party might have 
fallen upon him had he been of a more yielding and pla>tic clay. 
But, however this may have been, there is no doubt that it was a 
belief on the part of the Federal managers that his uncompro- 
mising and fearless course in public life, and especially in the 
matter of the separation of Maine, had damaged his popularity 
in Boston, that led them to omit his name when they came next 
to make up their list of candidates for the State Senate. Now, 
at that imperfect stage of our political development, the grand 
cardinal doctrine of modern politics, that of rotation in office, had 
not yet been discovered. It was fondly believed that the longer 
a competent man was retained in a public station, the better he 
was likely to be capable of performing its duties. The modern 

* Referring to the metallic tractors of Perkins, a long-exploded quackery, 
which proposed to cure all diseases by the galvanic virtues of these instru- 
ments. Ill almost all old-fashioned libraries, especially of Federal families, 
will be found a volume of Hudibrastic verse, entitled "Terrible Tractoration," 
by Doctor Caustic, in which the system was held up to ridicule. By its side will 
be found another volume, in the same short metre, called " Democracy Un- 
veiled," long since forgotten, like its companion, though famous and of many 
editions in its day. The author was Tliomas Green Fessenden, afterwards an 
agricultural writer and editor. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1796, and died 
in Boston in 1837. He will be remembered rather by a kindly obituary article 
about him by Hawthorne, published in the American Monthly the saran year. 



SPEECH IN FANEUIL HALL. 377 

improvements in our State institutions, and in the manner of 
administering them, which apparently have for their object to 
secure to the Commonwealth the largest possible amount of inex- 
perience and incompetency for the management of its affairs, 
were not yet thought of. kTIus treatment of Mr, Quincy was re- 
garded by his personal friends, therefore, as unjust and ungrate- 
ful on the part of the wire-pullers of the party, in view of his ^ 
long devotion and faithful services to it, and he was by no means 
insensible to their conduct himself. But he kept his temper and 
his counsel, and, without letting any one know his intentions ex- 
cepting his wife, he went to the caucus in Faneuil Hall on the 
next Sunday evening, and took his place in the front row of the 
side gallery. ' As soon as the meeting was organized, he rose and 
addressed the moderator. His appearance there, which was evi- 
dently a general surprise, excited as general a curiosity to know 
what he was going to say and what course to take, — a curiosity 
probably not unmixed wiih anxiety on the part of those who had 
engineered the dropping of his name from the list of candidates. 
The hall was crowded to overflowing, and all were on tiptoe 
with expectation when he began his speech. First, he expressed 
his satisfaction at finding himself addressing a caucus in Faneuil 
Hall for the first time in near twenty years, he having been al- 
ways a candidate for office of some kind, and it not being then J 
the custom for candidates to address public meetings called to 
promote their own election. Then he proceeded to treat of the 
way in which he had been thrown overboard with such a mix- 
ture of pleasantry and good sense, and to urge the claims of the 
ticket, and especially of the gentleman substituted for himself, on 
the support of the people, in such a strain of humor, wit, and 
bonhommie, that the old walls shook with laughter and cheers, 
and he went out of the hall the most popular man in the town. 
Old citizens yet recall this speech as one of the most brilliant 
and telling they had ever listened to, and laugh at the recollec- 
tioE of it after the lapse of near half a century. The immediate 
effect of this sensible and judicious conduct was the unanimous 
demand of the party that he should represent the town in the 
Lower House, since he was shut out of the Uppei", in obedience 



878 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

to which he was put at the head of the ticket for Representa- 
tives, and triumphantly elected. 

In those days the State government was organized on the last 
Wednesday of May, according to the ancient custom of the Prov- 
ince from the earliest days of the emigration. The Governor 
and the General Court were qualified, and a short session held, 
during which business was arranged and committees appointed to 
sit during the recess. The change which not long afterwards 
was adopted, altering the time of the inauguration of the govern- 
ment to the first Wednesday in January, chiefly on the grounds 
of economy of time and money, resulted in small saving of either, 
while it destroyed an immemorial holiday, at the most beautiful 
season of the year, for a community that had too few holidays 
already. In January the long session was held, shortened by 
the work done to its hands by the committees in the recess, so 
that there was probably an actual saving of time under the old 
system. I well remember my father's buoyant satisfaction at 
finding himself for the first time a member of the popular branch 
of the Legislature of his native State. He said it was like being 
on the floor of Congress again. And, indeed, the Massachusetts 
House of Representatives at that time was by much the more 
numerous body of the two. At this first session provision was 
made for holding a convention of the people for the revision of 
the Constitution, such a measure being thought advisable in con- 
sequence of the erection of the District of Maine into a sovereign 
State. The preliminary motion was made by Mr. Quincy, who 
was made chairman of the committee charged with the consid- 
eration of the subject. An act was accordingly reported direct- 
ing the people to give their ballots for or against the measure, 
and, if the majority should pronounce in the affirmative, the Con- 
vention was to be summoned by the Governor to meet in Boston 
on the third Wednesday of November. The people approved of 
the -proposition, and Mr. Quincy was elected one of the delegates 
from Boston. In his journal of the time when this revision was 
in contemplation, he records the following conversation with Mr. 
Adams, who drafted the existing Constitution. The part Mr. 
Adams had in that fundamental act of legislation is recorded iu 



CONVENTION OF 1820. 379 

his life, and is a part of history ; but this lively assertion of his 
claim as a legislator is too characteristic to be omitted : — 

'■'■May 31. — In the course of the past month I had one or two 
conversations with the Hon. John Adams concerning the expediency 
of a revision of our State Constitution. Among other things, I asked 
him who drafted the Constitution of Massachusetts. The old man 
answered, ' This right hand ! ' holding it up. ' There was a great com- 
mittee appointed to sit during the recess of the Convention, which 
accordin<;ly adjourned for some time. This committee appointed 
James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, and myself a sub-committee. These 
gentlemen insisted that I should take the paper to Braintree, where I 
then resided, and make the draft. This I accordingly did; and I 
completed the whole, except the article relative to religion. This I 
found I could not sketch, consistent with iny own sentiments of perfect 
religious freedom, with any hope of its being adopted by the Conven- 
tion, so I left it to be battled out in the whole body. This was the 
case. The other parts were adopted as I had drafted them, with some 
alterations.' 

" In relation to the state of religious sentiment at that period, the 
veteran said, 'that there was in 1780 more open, avowed infidelity, 
three to one, than at the present day, and that thirty years before the 
case was worse.' " 

Mr. Adams was elected, unanimously, a delegate from Quincy, 
and upon the assembling of the Convention on the 15th of 
Noveniber, he was almost unanimously elected its President. 
This honor he had to decline on account of his great age, 
and Chief Justice Parker was chosen in his stead. A seat, how- 
ever, was assigned to him on the right hand of the President, 
which he occupied during the sessions that he attended. I was 
in the gallery the next morning, and saw his reception by the 
Convention, the whole body rising, taking off their hats, and re- 
maining uncovered when he was introduced by the committee 
charged with that complimentary service, and conducted to the 
place of honor appointed for him. In those days the good old 
parliamentary custom of the members of the popular branch 
wearing their hats during the sessions of the House, the Speaker 
in the chair and the speaker on the floor only being uncoveredy' 
had not yet been reached by modern degeneracy. The great 



380 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

number of the members of the Massachusetts House then, ex 
ceeding that of the House of Commons now, made the head, as 
my father used to say, the most convenient peg possible for the 
hat. But the custom had come down from times, when the hat 
had a symboUc signification which it has long since lost. 

Mr. Quincy took an active part in all the debates and doings of 
the Convention, and had his full share in determining its action. 
It was a body whose character and discussions were very honor- 
able to the State. It was made up of the men of the greatest 
weight and distinction in both the political parties. All the pro- 
fessions were I'epresented by their most learned and eminent 
members, and the yeomanry and mechanics sent up substantial 
and intelligent men of their callings to help reform the State. 
Few polities, of whatever name or extent, could furnish an 
assembly of equal numbers more distinguished for talent, learn- 
ing, good sense, and fitness for the task of revising the funda- 
mental and vitalizing law of a great commonwealth. . 

The following extracts from my father's journal belong to 
about this period : — 

" June 2. — In the evening at F. C. Gray's. Gray stated that he had, 
as he apprehe/ided, satisfactorily ascertained that Jonathan Sewall was 
not the writer of Massachusettensis. That Judge Chipman, now in 
Boston, from Nova Scotia, as one of the commissioners under the 
treaty with Great Britain, had stated to him that he was a student of 
law with Sewall, in 1774, and copied at that time his political speeches 
for the press ; that Sewall wrote PhUanthropo>t, which he (Chipman) 
copied, and used to carry out to Milton to Governor Hutchinson, who 
revised and gave them their last corrections. That in 1774 Daniel 
Leonard moved from Taunton, having been appointed to an ofBce in 
the customs, and that he (Chipman) was recommended to Leonard by 
SewaU as an assistant in his office, and that he was emi)loyed by I^eon- 
ard in copying Massachusettensis and sending them to the printer. 
As Chipman may have mistaken the essays he thus copied, and as 
Leonard is now living, Gray stated to the club that he had sent a 
copy of the late publication of Massachusettensis and Novanglus, con- 
taining President Adams's Preface, to Leonard, for the purpose of as- 
certaining tlie fact." 

" June 4. — In the evening visited President Adams, — told him of 



EXTRACTS FROM' HIS JOURNAL. 381 

Gray's story relative to Massacliusettensis. He said that he knew all 
the time that Leonard was suspected to be the author ; but he never 
believed it, because he never thought Leonard able to write it. That 
it exhibited, indeed, more labor than Sewall was accustomed to expend 
on his compositions, and such interior marks of SewaU"s mind, that, if 
Leonard did write it, he was quite sure he was indebted to Sewall, 
either for the general turn of thought, or for subsequent corrections." 

It was probably this conversation that led Mr. Adams to 
change his long-settled opinion that Jonathan Sewall was the 
author of those celebrated papers. The next year he expressed 
this change of opinion in a letter quoted in a note to the Preface 
to Novanglus, in his grandson's edition of his works.* 

^^ Juli/ 10. — In the evening visited Hon. John Adams. He related 
to me the following anecdote of my father and himself. During 
the time of the operation of the Boston Port Bill, when the loss of 
trade and the general stagnation of business in consequence of that 
measure threatened the town with utter destruction, and the poor 
with the greatest misery and distress, ' your father,' said he, addressing 
me, ' made a famous speech, in his usual nervous and eloquent style, 
on the duty of a general co-operation in measures which should ex- 
hibit the unanimity of all classes of the town, and their determination 
to endure every privation, and concluded with some resolutions pro- 
posing, during the continuance of that measure, general tables to be 
provided for all the citizens at the common expense. The proposition 
excited great noise and uproar ; some shouted, some hissed. For my 
part,' said he, ' I was for supporting the proposition of your father. 
And, after some previous remarks, I said, that the manner in which 
the suggestions of my friend Mr. Quincy had been received renynded 
me of one of the sonnets of John Milton : — 

' " I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs 
By the known rules of ancient liberty, 
When straight a barbarous noise environs me 
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs." * 



* Vol. IV. p. 10. Jonathan Sewall was an eminent lawyer, successively So- 
licitor and Attorney-General under the Crown, to which he adhered in 1775. He 
married Esther, daughter of Edmund Quincy, brother to Colonel Josiah Quincy, 
and sister of the wife of Governor Hancock. He was the father of Chief Justice 
Jonathan Sewall of Quebec, and of Mr. Stephen Sewall, K. C, of Montreal. 



382 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" President Adams said of Joseph Hawley, that he was ' an Israelite 
indeed, in whom there was no guile,' — of considerable eloquence, and 
unquestionable talent, but that he had always a vein of melancholy, 
which finall)' terminated in something like distraction. He said ako 
of Timothy Ruggles, the leader pf the Tory party in the House of 
Representatives, that he was a man of gi'eat wit, and, although not 
fluent, one of the most majestic persons he ever heard. In the early 
part of his life he had been a lawyer, but left the profession and took 
a colonel's commission in the year 1755. He served during the whole 
war until the Peace of 1763. He took refuge in Boston, and went 
with the British to New Brunswick, in which Province he died (1795), 
at a very advanced age." 

" July 30. — Passed evening with President Adams. Conversation 
turned on Botta's History of the United States, which he had just seen. 
He agreed with Jefferson that it was the best extant ; he thought, 
however, that it was written with the intention of giving an impression 
to the world of the great influence of France in effecting the inde- 
pendence of the United States. He considered him as being inclined 
to give an undue credit to the Southern States in producing that 
event. 'One thing,' said Adams, 'I confess touched my vanity.. 
Botta has adopted the ancient plan of putting speeclies into the mouths 
of the actors in his history ; and the debate relative to the Declara- 
tion of Independence is carried on in this volume between John Dick- 
inson and Richard Henry Lee. Now the truth is, that Lee said very 
little on that subject on that occasion. The debate was in fact between 
John Dickinson and John Adams.' 

" Speaking of the indications of discontent in France, he said, mon- 
archy must come down in the Old World, which, sooner or later, must 
submit to the representative system. Indeed, that it was now nothing 
to wli^t it was formerly, and, as light and knowledge increased, it must 
be ameliorated. He considered the French Revolution as having 
tended greatly to impede the improvement in the condition of man- 
kind. Befoi-e that event the old governments were everywhere grad- 
ually growing better. The severity of the ancient regime was soften- 
ing ; torture and the Inquisition were abolished except in Spain, and 
there existed but as the shadow of what they once were. But that 
tempest fell upon Europe, and produced such terror everywhere that 
the natural progress of the principles of liberty was checked. Those 
terrors were, however, now dissipating, and the ancient prejudices and 
influences must yield to the effect of learning and the general diffusion 
of knowledge in the world." 



MR. DOWSE OF DEDHAM. 383 

During the winier of 1820 the public mind of the whole coun- 
try was agitated by the discussion of the question whether or nut 
Missouri should be admitted into the Union with a constitution 
making slavery one of its organic institutions. This is not the 
place, even had I the time and space, to enter into the philoso- 
phy or the facts of that momentous transaction. The people of 
the North were brought into unwonted unanimity by the immi- 
nence of this threatening peril. Democrats, as well as Federal- 
ists, were of one mind, with scarcely an exception, as to the fatal 
nature of the concession demanded by the Slave States. Had 
all the Senators and Representatives of the Northern States 
truly represented the opinions of their constituents, an effectual 
stand might have been then made against the encroaching arro- 
gance of the slave power. While this mighty question hung in 
the balance, public meetings were held all over New England to 
throw tlie weight of public opinion into the Northern scale, and 
Boston was not behindhand in speaking her sense of what the 
crisis demanded. A great meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, 
at which it may well be believed Mr. Quincy assisted. He 
was one of a large committee, taken from both political par- 
ties, to report an address on the subject, which was written by 
Daniel Webster chiefly if not entirely. It was small satisfac- 
tion to Mr. Quincy to see his prophecies as to the consequences 
of Jefferson's couj) d'etat of 1803 so soon begin to be fullilled, — 
a beginning only of their accomplishment which reached over 
the next forty years. 

The following letter from John Randolph was in reply to one 
introducing to his acquaintance Mr. Edward Dowse of Dedham, 
who served during the first session of that famous Congress as 
the Representative of his District.. Mr. Dowse had manied Mr. 
Quincy's maternal aunt, Hannah Phillips. They left Boston at 
the time of the yellow-fever in 1797, and, going to Dedham for a 
few weeks, they remained there for the rest of their lives. Mrs. 
Dovvse's sister, Mi-s. Sarah Shaw, widow of Major Samuel Shaw 
of the Revolutionary army, lived with them. These ladies were 
twins, and so closely resembled each other as to be undistinguish- 
able the one from the other by their nearest friends, excepting 



384 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

by a slight difference of dress. The country-people round about 
were accustomed to speak of the three as " Mr. Dowse and hig 
two wives"! Yet they never spoke of them but with love and 
gratitude, for their bounty was only limited by their means, and 
their charity neither began nor stayed at home. Any life of my 
father would be imperfect without a tribute of affectionate re- 
membrance to these beloved relatives, and especially any writ- 
ten by me, who am daily reminded of them by the roof that 
shelters me, by the trees they planted, and by the river that they 
loved. They were childless, and he was the only son of their 
only sister, and consequently his relation to them was all but 
filial, and they well supplied to his children the grandparents 
these had never known. They and he were perhaps drawn yet 
nearer to each other by some sense of a common injustice. His 
grandfather and their father, William Phillips, of whom I have 
spoken in my earlier chapters, influenced by the desire of keep- 
ing together the large fortune he had accumulated, bequeathed it 
almost entire to his only son, leaving to my father, the only rep- 
resentative of one of his daughters, absolutely nothing, and but a 
\ery moderate provision to Mrs. Dowse and Mrs. Shaw. His 
son, William Phillips, for many years Lieutenant-Governor, and 
noted for his large munificence, public and private, in some de- 
gree made amends to his sisters for this distinction in his favor, 
and yet more liberally from time to time during his lifetime and 
by his will to his nephew, who always rendered to him the duty 
and service of an affectionate son. Mrs. Dowse and Mrs. Shaw 
did not change to the end of their long lives the fashion of the 
dress of their prime, and they remained until long into this cen- 
tury in look and manners examples of the gentlewomen of the 
pre-Revolutionary period. Mr. Dowse had been much about the 
world, and was one of the first Americans who engaged in the 
trade with China, after it was opened to us by the Peace of 1783. 
For many years, however, he lived in retirement at Dedham, 
exercising the most abundant hospitality to his friends, and re- 
lieving all the poverty and suffering he could find out. No one 
who ever knew him could forget the eager cordiality of his man- 
ners, and the almost passionate demonstrativeness of his tempera- 



LETTER FROM JOHN RANDOLPH. 385 

ment. When I was a lad, and fresh from the fir?t of many read- 
ings of Fielding's epic novel, I used to liken him to Mr. All- 
worthy ; and yet there was an enthusiasm and simplicity of char- 
acter about him — though he had known cities and the manners 
of many men, though he had seen Garrick and Foote, and heard 
Burke and Sheridan — which savored rather of Parson Adams, 
that still more exquisite creation of " the prose Homer of human 
nature." But it is time to return to John Randolph's letter, from 
which the revered and beloved images it casually conjured up 
have lured me away. 

Mr. Randolph to Mk. Quincy. 

" Washington, December 18, 1819. 

" Sir : — T am under a threefold obligation to you for the pleasure 
of your letter, of Mr. Dowse's acquaintance, and the perusal of your 
lively and interesting address. I take them in the order of succession ; 
and this obligation would have been earlier acknowledged but for my 
having been obliged to go the next day to Baltimore, whence I have 
just returned. The morning after its receipt I devoted to the reading 
of your address to the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, by which I 
was at once instructed and entertained, and had my hand on the goose- 
quill to express ray thanks to the writer, when one of the harpies that 
lilt about these regions, and which neither Virgil nor I need describe to 
you, ' soused down ' upon me and made my time his prey. I say his, 
for this vampyre bat — neither bird nor beast in political zoology — 
•was of the masculine gender. 

" If I knew anything, I would communicate it to you, but I find my- 
self as raw as if I had been just catched in the backwoods and caged 
for a legislator. 

" Yesterday I had the pleasure to hear of you through our mutual 
friend, Mr. Bleecker. 

"I am, sir, your obliged and most obedient friend and servant, 

"John Randolph of Roanoke. 

" P. S. INIy sight has so failed me that I can hardly read or write. 
I do not distinctly see a single character traced by my pen. 
" Qu. Address p. 9, pyramidically or pyramidally ?" 

[ N. B. Either spelling is correct.] 

17 y 



886 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

The excellent Mr. Dowse, however, had one defect in his al- 
most perfect character ; — 

" Yet one fault he had, but that was a thumper ! " 
He was a Democrat, — a Democrat of the Democrats ! Consid- 
ering that he and my father held such diametrically opposite 
opinions on poinis which they both regarded as vital to the best 
interests of their country, and this with all the earnestness of 
temperaments of extraordinary ardor, it is honoralde to them both 
that tiiis divergence of politics never divided them from one an- 
other personally, or abated the warmth of their mutual frieud- 
ehip. Mr. Dowse held very different opinions of Mr. Jefferson 
from those Mr. Quincy entertained. They had known each other 
personally, — I believe, abroad, — and it is probable that Mr. 
Dowse was not unaffected by tlie personal influence of which 
]Mr. Jefferson had so large a gift. At any rate, he was a per- 
sonal and political admirer of that renowned leader, and they had 
interchanged friendly offices with one another. I have in my 
possession a mighty punch-bowl bearing Mr. Jefferson's cipher 
and his famous motto, " Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience 
TO God," which was part of a dinner-set which Mr. Dowse had 
had made for him, at his request, in Canton, when he was Secre- 
tary of State. Mr. Dowse having been unduly delayed in Cliina, 
Mr. Jefferson had been obliged to provide himself with another 
service. Mr. Dow.-e refused to allow his friend to take tlie 
superfluous set off his hands, which he was entirely willing to do, 
and found a purchaser for it in a gentleman of Boston, whom the 
cipher suited, and who did not object to the motto. The punch- 
bowl and a pair of pitciiers he retained in rei memoriam. To 
his consistent adherence to the Democratic party in the midst of 
social surroundings of a strongly Federal tendency, Mr. Dowse 
undoubtedly owed his nomination to Congress, and his winter in 
Washington that memorable year, to which he always recurred 
as the most delightful he had ever spent, for personally and so- 
cially he was a great favorite there. He was deeply impressed 
with the vital importance of the business which absorbed the 
thoughts of Congress and the nation. "I shall never regret 
having come to Washington," he wrote to his wife, " because it 



MR. DOWSE IN CONGRESS. 387 

has given me an opportunity to exert my best efforts, however 
feeble, to prevent the extension of slavery in our country." I 
will indulge myself with inserting a few extracts from this domes- 
tic correspondence, as alike honorable to his clearness of insight 
and his consistent love of liberty, and curious as contemporary 
records of an actor in a passage of history so full of fate. 

" December 20, 1819. — I spent an hour at the President's house last 
evening, in pleasant conversation, Mrs. Monroe becoming, as it were, at 
o^ce, an old acquaintance. She is a New York lady, — a very hand- 
some woman, elegant, easy, and affable in her manners. The President 
incited me to dine with him next Friday, and mentioned he intended 
to invite the foreign ministers." 

Mr. Monroe was a former acquaintance of Mr. Dowse, and 
had spent the night before entering Boston, in July, 1817, at his 
house in Dedham. 

" January 8, 1820. — I am on one of the committees, and have no 
leisure left, unless I forego the debates in the House, where are dis- 
played such powers, such eloquence, as at least rivals the British Par- 
Uament. I confess (and it shows the power of prejudice to beguile the 
imderstanding) that I have never properly appreciated our friend 
Quincy. He is here spoken of with admiration, and his last letter to 
me on the Missouri question delights all his friends. In political wis- 
dom on this question he is inferior to no one. Such men as he ought 
to be in public life. 

" There is here a great assemblage of talent on the floor of Con- 
gress, — some who might emulate the Athenian orator, whose ' resist- 
less eloquence wielded at will that fierce democratic.' To-moiTOw comes 
on the great question of the Missouri Territory, the people of which 
are sutficiently numerous to become a State, and claim to be admitted 
as such ; and they also claim the right of holding slaves. The question 
will be productive of much zeal, not to say animosity, on both sides. 

" I wish you could be present sometimes, and hear John Randolph's 
wit. It is the most delicate, and, at the same time, the keenest. 

" If Quincy was here he would be of grpat service to us on the great 
question of the Missouri Territory. To be an able statesman in su^h 
a government as ours, a man should commence his career early in life. 
The Southern people have a great preponderancy of talent against us. 



388 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY 

" January 26. — Yesterday began a sort of skirmishing on the Mis- 
souri business. This preparatory manteuvring will to-day probably lead 
on the shock of battle. The question is undoubtedly of immense im- 
portance. On one side, the passions, as well as the present and 
apparent interests, of the Southern people, are deeply engaged ; and, 
to my sorrow, I perceive that they have drawn over some of our 
Yankees. The cause of humanity, religion, and sound policy is the 
motive, I firmly believe, which influences the other. 

February 5. — Missouri, Missouri, engages all attention. Scarcely 
Dver wtis so great a question agitated before a human tribunal. A 
tost of talents is brought into the field. In the Senate, things have 
^iiS against us dejjlorably, owing to the defection of our Yankees. 
^Oi. slaves, t'venty-seven ; against slavery in Missouri, sixteen. I am 
•ojclced that Otis is on our side. The leading members of the Senate 
vre now spectators in our House, where they find themselves surpassed, 
I suspect, not only m njms.ei"S, but in eloquence. I wish Qulncy was 
lere to stem the torrent- 

" I have thought that the cva^orioal and parliamentary talents were 
^)0ssessed almost exclusively bj- the slave-holding States. But to my 
great joy I find it is not so. There are good men of great minds and 
acquirements on our side, and it fills nie with delightful reflections, a 
kind of awe at the real grandeur of the Iiuii,an •jharacter, to find it 
capable of such expansion. 

"If sound policy, if reason, if religion, if virtue, can ever success- 
fully combat against the love of money, — the solo rout ol" all this evil, 
— then shall we come off victorious in this great Mis3omi question. 

" Randolph finished his speech yesterday, not much, I suspect, to his 
own satisfaction. He said his nerves were unstrung, and his bodily 
and mental powers in a state of prostration; and so they appeared to 
be. Not all his talents are adequate to sustain the cause he has em- 
barked in. 

" As to putting Maine and Missouri together, in my opinion it was 
a jockeying trick, just worthy of ostlers in a livery-stable ; and I sus- 
pect Clay and Holmes were at the bottom of it. 

" March 3, 1820. — Slavery is allowed of as far as thirty-six and a 
half degrees of latitude. Some people think the Missourians them- 



HIS LAW OF LIBEL IN THP: MAFFITT CASE. 389 

selves will interdict slavery from their new State. It would be their 
present glory, and permanent happiness, if they should do so. I feel 
most wofully mortified and cast down at the result of our Missouri 
Bill. For slavery, ninety ; against it, eighty-seven. Four of our side 
stayed out at the final taking of the question ; and four more went over 
and joined the slaveholders, which operated as equivalent to eight 
against us. The whole counted as twelve against us, who ought to 
have been for us Whether this proceeded from weakness or treach- 
ery, I will not pretend to say. People talk pretty much as if this had 
been brought about by sly, underhand Executive influence. I do not 
pretend to judge, or to form any opinion about it ; but if there were 
strong reasons to think so, Monroe ought to be turned out of the next 
Presidency. I consider our nation now as disgraced in the eyes of the 
civilized nations of the earth. We had it in our power to stop the 
progress of slavery, and we chose to let it go on." * 

At the second session of the General Court, January, 1821, 
the Speaker of the House, Mr. Elijah H. Mills of Northampton, 
was elected United States Senator, and Mr. Quincy was chosen 
Speaker in his stead. For this office he was eminently fitted by 
his long parliamentai'y experience, and by his peculiar talent for 
the despatch of business. The next May he was re-elected to 
the Speakership, but resigned it before hi-; term of office expired 
to take the post of Judge of the Municipal Court of Boston. 
This was a jury court for the trial of all offences not capital 
committed in the town of Boston. Its jurisdiction was exclu- 
sively criminal. During the short time he remained on the 
bench, he manifested, not only great discrimination and humanity 
in the administration of criminal justice, but a facility in master- 
ing and applying the principles of law to the facts in evidence 
somewhat remarkable in one who had been so long with- 
drawn from professional life. The most important case that 
came before him was that of Joseph T. Buckingham, editor of 
the Galaxy, a weekly paper conducted with great spirit and 
much ability, for a libel on John N. INIatfitt, a notorious Methodist 
minister of that day, and father of the "notorious Rebel corsair of 

* Mr. Dowse resigned his seat in Congress at the end of the long session, 
and spent the rest of his life at Dedham, where he died in 1828, in his seventy- 
third year. 



390 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the same name. This case excited a very general interest, es- 
pecially among the religious public, whose displeasure Mr. Buck- 
ingham had incurred by very great plainness of speech as to some 
prominent members of it. Mr. Quincy ruled, that a defendant 
under indictment for libel might be allowed to prove that his alle- 
gations were true, and that they were published with good mo- 
tives and for justifiable ends. He argued that the common-law 
doctrine, that the truth could not be admitted in evidence under 
an indictment for libel, — or, as usually put, that " the greater 
the truth, the greater the libel," — was overruled by the express 
provision of the Constitution of the State, which made a specific 
reservation for its citizens of the liberty of the press, — a liberty 
unknown, as such, to the common law, — and declared that all 
parts of that law repugnant to that liberty are not to be con- 
sidered law under the Constitution. Under this ruling evidence 
was admitted to prove the truth of the charges against Maffitt, 
and Mr. Buckingham was acquitted. This was the first time 
that such a ruling had been made in the case of an ordinary in- 
dictment for a libel on a private individual, and it excited much 
discussion and no little censure at the time. But Mr. Quincy's 
law of libel has prevailed, and is now the established rule in 
this country and in England. 

In the year 1820 my father left the house in Summer Street 
for the one on the corner of Hamilton Place and Tremont Street, 
which was given to him by his uncle, Lieutenant-Governor Phil- 
lips, where he lived until he removed to Cambridge in 1829. 
The house was not, in itself, so large or so good as that he left, 
but its situation on the Common, commanding a view of the dis- 
tant country and the western sky, made it a much more agree- 
able one to live in. It was a change in every respect satisfactory 
to himself and his family, and nine very happy winters were 
spent under that roof. 



VIEWS AND ACTS AS TO POVERTY AND CRIME. 891 

CHAPTER XVI. 

1823-1828. 

Mr. Quincy's Views and Acts as to Poverty and Crime. — Nomina- 
tion FOK First Mayor of Boston. — Party Complications. — Elected 
THE Second Year. — The House of Industry. — Of Correction. — 
Of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders. — Improvement in the 
Police. — The Fire Department. — Schools. — The High School for 
Girls. — Faneuil Hall Market- House. — Visits of Lafayette. — Life 
of Josiah Quincy, Junior. — Visitors. — Fourth of July Oration. — 
Death of John Adams. — Correspondence. — Randolph's last Let- 
ter. — Mr. Quincy as a Municipal Magistrate. — Loses his PIlection. 
— His Address on leaving the Office. 

THE great social problems vvliich have not yet ceased to vex 
political philosophers — how best to provide for the poor and 
to treat the vicious and the criminal members of society — had 
long and deeply engaged Mr. Quincy's thoughtful consideration. 
The growth of population demanded some change in the old 
almshouse system, which had come down from the Colonial times, 
and which answered sufficiently well for the early days when 
paupers were few. The town of Boston, though its population 
amounted to but little more than forty thousand souls, was closely 
built, and the almshouse in its heart ceased to be suitable or suf- 
ficient for the growing necessities of the place. Soon after en- 
tering the General Court in 1820, Mr. Quincy moved for an 
inquiry into the subject of pauperism, and was made chairman 
of the committee raised for the purpose. Returns were called 
for from all the towns in the State, giving their methods and 
experience in the matter of providing for the poor. From such 
returns he made a report, submitted the next January, which 
condensed the experience of England and Massachusetts as to 
the various methods of dealing with pauperism. This report was 
printed and circulated, by order of the Legislature, throughout 
the State,' and I believe the improved system of treating the de- 
pendent poor, — especially the institution of town farms, — which 



392 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

has replaced the old ways, was greatly advanced by the distribu- 
tion of that report, if it did not absolutely date therefrom. The 
next May Mr. Quincy was appointed by the town chairman of a 
committee on the ?ame subject, and, in pursuance of the recom- 
mendations of the report he made to the town, the committee was 
authorized to provide a House of Industry, where the able-bodied 
poor could support themselves in part, and where the impotent 
from age or infirmity could be comfortably lodged and cared for. 
A tract of land was purchased in South Boston, then a thinly 
inhabited district, and a suitable building erected. Like all 
clianges, even for the better, this one met with its share of opposi- 
tion. The Overseers of the Poor, a body elected by the town, 
strenuously resisted this change in the disposition of the paupers 
in their charge, and it was not fully completed for several years, 
in consequence of their persistent opposition. Popular prejudice 
was aroused against this innovation on the ancient usages. It 
was pionounced" cruel to compel the poor to leave the town in 
which they had lived all their live'S, and the paupers themselves 
were almost ready to rise in rebellion against their oppressors. 
And so kind and gentle was the spirit in which those unfortunates 
were treated in those days, that none were colonized to South 
Boston excepting with their own consent, while the town govern- 
ment lasted. Some of these sturdy beggars, with a spirit worthy 
of a better cause, resolutely refused to change their quarters, de- 
claring " that they had not gone into the almshouse to work " 1 

Mr. Quincy's experience as a criminal judge had made him 
consider the bearings of poverty upon the welfare of society yet 
more deeply, as well as those of vice and crime with which he 
was called upon more immediately to deal. In March, 1822, in 
his charge to the grand jury, he treated at large of these three 
topics, and showed their relations to one another in a very lucid 
manner, and indicated those reforms in the treatment of the crim- 
inal classes, such as classification and separation in penitentiaries, 
and the substitution of private for public executions, which have 
since been almost universally adopted in the Nortliern States. 

The intelligent zeal he had shown in the matter of these much- 
needed reforms, together with his well-tried integrity and activi- 



PARTY COMPLICATIONS. 393 

ty, suggested him to those inhabitants of the town who were the 
most conversant with its municipal affairs as the fittest person to 
organize tlie new form of government, after it had been deter- 
mined to exchange the old popular rule by town meetings for 
one by a civic corporation. This change Mr. Quincy resisted by 
speech and pen as long as there was any chance of defeating it. 
He believed the pure democracy of the town meeting more suited 
to the character of the people of New England, and less liable to 
corruption and abuse, than a more compact government. But his 
opposition was vain ; the city charter was granted by the Legisla- 
ture, and accepted by the people, and he presided on the 28th of 
March, 1822, as moderator of tbe last town meeting ever held 
in Faneuil Hall. A body of the most substantial citizens, and 
the most experienced in conducting the town affairs, invited him 
to stand as candidate for the office of Mayor, on no party grounds 
whatever, but solely on account of his eminent fitness for the 
work of organizing the new government. He accepted their in- 
vitation, never dreaming of the office being made one of the 
prizes of party. The Federal leaders, however, did not take 
this view of the matter, and they had arranged it that Mr. 
Harrison Gray Otis, who just then resigned his seat in the 
United States Senate, should be the first Mayor of Boston, as 
the stepping-stone, it was believed, to the Governorship of the 
State. They accordingly nominated him, and Mr. Quincy was 
placed in a most delicate positipn, between what he owed to his 
friends whose nomination he had accepted, and his obligations to 
his party, which had set up a candidate of its own. This pro- 
ceeding of the Federal managers did not please the citizens 
who had made Mr. Quincy their first choice, and they would not 
release him from his promise ; and although his most valued pei'- 
sonal friends and his most honored relatives urged him to with- 
draw, and so prevent a breach in the Federal party, he felt 
himself bound to stand by the men who stood by him. At the 
election he would have been chosen, beyond a doubt, had not the 
Democrats, the night before, set up Mi'. Thomas L. Winthrop, 
without the knowledge of that gentleman, and to his great dis- 
pleasure, which drew off votes enough to defeat the election. 



394 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Mr. Quincy had much the largest vote, and lacked only about 
a hundred of an absolute majority. He gladly seized the oppor- 
tunity of withdrawing his name, and, Mr. Otis's friends doing 
the same thing by him, Mr. John Phillips was elected at the next 
clioice. ]Mr. Pliillips retiring at the end of his year, Mr. Quincy 
• was elected his successor without material opposition. 

On the 1st of May, 1823, he was inaugurated as the second 
Mayor of Boston, in Faneuil Hall, and entered at once upon the 
discharge of his ,new duties with characteristic activity and zeal. 
During the mayoralty of his predecessor, the administration of 
the affairs of the city had not dilFered materially from that of the 
town it had superseded. Mr. Phillips was a man of excellent 
abilities, sound judgment, and sterling integrity. He retained 
his seat in the State Senate and his place as its President, and 
performed the duties of his civic office in the spirit and after the 
fashion of a faithful chairman of the Selectmen under the town 
government. Mr. Phillips was strictly my father's contempo- 
rary, and perhaps his most intimate and valued friend from boy- 
hood. His death, which occurred very suddenly in June, 1823, 
was severely felt and deeply deplored by my father, as the 
heaviest loss he had met with since that of his mother. Mr. 
Phillips had been in the public service of Massachusetts, in one 
station or another, for almost the whole of his mature life, and 
the State had no more trusted and respected citizen. He will be 
known, however, to the present generation, and hereafter, chiefly 
as the father of his celebrated son, Mr. Wendell Phillips. 

Mr. Quincy's first step towards the establishment of a more 
vigorous administration of affairs was to claim the privilege of 
doing the chief of the work himself. He made himself chairman 
of all the committees of the Board of Aldermen, and took the 
laboring oar into his own hand. The opposition of the Overseers 
of the Poor to the removal of the paupers from the almshouse in 
Boston, the condition of which had grown to be absolutely dis- 
graceful to the city, prevented the completion of that favorite 
measure of his until 1825, when it was finally effected. The 
evils attendant on the promiscuous mingling of the honest poor 
with rogues and vagabonds were mitigated by the establishment 



MAYOR OF BOSTON. 395 

of the first House of Correction, properly so called, in Boston, 
during the first year of his mayoralty. A building in the jail- 
yard was used at first for this purpose, but the establishment was 
afterwards removed to South Boston, near the House of Industry. 
The separation, more important yet, of the young convicts from 
the old in places of penal restraint, led to the establishment of a 
House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders, the results of which, 
both direct, in the large proportion of young persons who were 
saved to society by its means, and indirect, by the encouragement 
which its successful experiment has given to the system else- 
where, have been of the happiest nature. These institutions 
were long regarded as models in their several kinds, and Mr. 
Quincy always looked upon them with peculiar satisfaction as 
being largely creations of his own. The House of Reformation 
for Juvenile Offenders excited the particular admiration of Messrs. 
Beaumont and De Tocqueville, when they visited Boston in the 
cours^e of the inquiries with which they were charged by the 
French government. They expressed an earnest wish that such 
an institution could be established in France ; " but," M. de 
Tocqueville added, " it would be essential to its success that 
Boston should lend to it the first superintendent and organizer 
of her own institution," — the Rev. Eleazar M. P. Well.-, D.D., 
whose life has been one long service of the unfortunate and 
suffering classes. 

The internal police of the city was another matter which 
called for the anxious attention of the new Mayor. The main- 
tenance of order, the abatement of nuisances, the protection of 
the public health, the suppression of impudent vice, and the swift 
and sure overtaking of crime, devolved upon him, and with no 
sufficient force to fulfil these demands of his office. The policing 
of cities was very imperfectly understood in this country, or in 
England, until the reform initiated by Sir Robert Peel. Mr. 
Quinc}' Had to work with such instruments as law and custom af- 
forded him, and he used them to the best advantage. The entire 
police force then consisted of a constabulary twenty-four strong, 
and a body of eighty night-watchmen, of whom not more than 
eighteen were on duty at the same time ! It seems hardly credi- 



396 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Lie that a city of between fifty and sixty thousand inhabitants 
could have been kept in peace and safety by so small a force. 
and I apprehend that it was without a parallel in this country or 
in Europe. But the population of Boston at that time was sin- 
gularly homogeneous. The great Irish and German emigrations 
had not then set in. The city was eminently English in its 
character and appearance, and probably no town of its size in 
England had a population of such unmixed English descent as 
the Boston of forty years ago. It was Anglis ipsis Angllor, — 
more English than the English themselves. The inhabitants of 
New England at that time were descended, with scarcely any ad- 
mixture of foreign blood, from the Puritan emigration of the 
seventeenth century. They kept the peace and maintained or- 
der themselves, without the need of guardians to take care of 
them. The number of constables and watchmen was not in- 
creased during Mr. Quincy's mayoralty, and all he could con- 
tribute towards their efficiency was care in the selection of the 
men, and the appointment of a competent head, under the style 
of the City Marshal. 

Still, quiet and well-ordered as Boston was, in general, there 
was one disgraceful district which had set at defiance for years 
the attempts of the town authorities to reduce it to order. In- 
famous houses were openly maintained, the resort of the worst 
part of the population. Murders had notoriously ' been com- 
mitted there, and it was believed that by no means all had been 
brought to light. The head of the old town police told Mr. 
Quincy that this nuisance could not be abated without a military 
force. No man's life would be safe that should attempt it. Mr. 
Quincy asked him if vice and villany were too strong for the 
police ; to which he replied : " I think so. At least, it has long 
been so." " There shall be at least an attempt to execute the 
laws," said the Mayor ; and he proceeded to make it. On exam- 
ining the terms of the City Charter, he found that he had not the 
powers under it necessary for a summary suppression of this nest 
of vice and villany, so he was obliged to act only in his capacity 
of a Justice of the Peace throughout the Commonwealth. His 
first step was to issue a warrant for the arrest of the fiddlers who 



MAYOR OF BOSTON. 397 

inspired the orgies of the dance-houses, under an old Provincial 
statute never repealed, aimed at those troublers of the night- 
watches ; and his next, to take away the licenses of all the tip- 
pling-shops and bar-rooms in the region round about. Deprived 
at once of music and of drink, the enemy succumbed to the 
authority of law without resistance. The nuisance was thor- 
oughly abated, and, though vice might not have lost half its mis- 
chief, it was stripped of much of its grossness, and public decency 
was no more insulted by its flaunting insolence. That part of 
the town is now covered with the houses of respectable and 
wealthy citizens, many of whom probably do not know to whose 
heritage they have succeeded. On another occasion a riot was 
proceeding in another part of the town, for the purpose of de- 
stroying some houses of ill-fame. The constabulary were entire- 
ly insufficient for the work to be done, and Mr. Quincy, casting 
about for a proper force, bethought him of the draymen, or 
truckmen as they were then denominated. I believe the long 
narrow vehicle on two wheels, for the conveyance of heavy bur- 
dens, called " a truck," is now extinct, but it was then the chief 
one in use ; and the truckmen, generally owning their horses and 
trucks, were a very substantial and respectable, as well as a burly 
and resolute set of men. A word to one or two of the leaders 
among them brought the brotherhood to the aid of the Mayor, 
who, placing himself at their head, and making the proper strategic 
dispositions, swept the rioters out of the streeit by mere force of 
muscle, and sent them about their business. 

Another department of urgent importance to the city, which it 
was Mr. Quincy's good fortune to put upon a better footing than 
ever before, was tlie Fire Department. This existed in a very 
primitive form when he came into office. Engines were pro- 
vided by the town, manned by voluntary companies, and officered 
by fire-wards elected by the people. The engines were of small 
power, and at a fire depended entirely for their supply of water 
upon fire-buckets passed along lines of volunteer spectators reach- 
ing to the nearest pump. It was the theoretical right of the fire- 
wards to compel all and singular they met to fall into the line, 
and tradition said they had been known in times past to knock 



398 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

recusants down with the pole which was the ensign of their 
office. But persuasion was the only influence used within the 
memory of man, and the scene at a fire was one of the least en 
couraging manifestations possible of the democratic principle re- 
duced to practice. It was assumed to be the duty of every 
citizen to rush to the sce"he of action at the first stroke of the fire- 
bell, carrying with him his buckets, and perhaps a bag for the 
rescue of valuables from the flames. And, as a general rule, the 
confusion was great in proportion to the number who came with 
the best dispositions to be of service, but who too generally were 
only in the way. The single mind of a commander-in-chief, as 
necessary at a fire as in a battle, was wanting, and consequently 
even the imperfect means at hand were not turned to the best 
account. New York and Philadelphia were both of them in ad- 
vance of Boston in this particular, and Mr. Qiiincy, as the magis- 
trate charged with the safety of the city, was greatly desirous of 
adopting the latest improvements for putting out fires. But he 
bad most determined opposition to encounter. The old ways 
had been good enough for their fathers, and why not for them ? 
The introduction of hose for the supply of the engines was ridi- 
culed, and denounced as absurd, and almost wicked. The pur- 
chase of engines in New York and Philadelphia was an affront 
to the mechanics of Boston. The cisterns or reservoirs which 
were provided at convenient points to make sure of a sufliciency 
of water were " the inverted monuments of Quincy's extrava- 
gance." It was not without difficulty that the necessary powers 
for a reorganization of the department were obtained from the 
Legislature, and, when obtained, the inhabitants, whose consent 
was to be first had, sanctioned the change by a majority of only 
about a hundred. The system thus introduced, though flir 
enough from the admirable one which now exists, soon com- 
mended itself to the entire community by the greater sense of 
security which it inspired, of which the fact that the insurance 
companies at once, of their own accord, reduced their rates by 
twenty per cent, was a satisfactory proof. 

The circumstance of the greatest local interest in Mr. Quincy's 
municipal administration was the building of the Faneuil Hall 



FANEUIL HALL MARKET-HOUSE. 399 

Market-house. The conveniences for the provisioning of the 
city were at that time of a very limited description, and one of 
the first considerations which occurred to hira after entering on 
his office was, how these could be enlarged and improved without 
great expense to the city. From first to last he encountered op- 
position in every shape, — of the selfish interests of the property- 
holders whom it was necessary to buy out, of the parties whose 
vested interests in the old state of things were endangered, of 
demagogues who were ready to lay hold of any occasion of per- 
suading the people that they were in danger of ruin, and of cautious 
citizens who dreaded the creation of an unmanageable city debt. 
I have not the space, nor would it be generally interesting at this 
day, to trace the whole progress of this remarkable transaction ; 
and I cannot state the result better or more compactly than he 
has done it himself in his Municipal History of Boston.* " A 
granite market-house, two stories high, five hundred and thirty- 
five feet long, fifty feet wide, covering twenty-seven thousand feet 
of land, was erected at the cost of one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars. Six new streets were opened, and a seventh 
greatly enlarged, including one hundred and sixty-seven thou- 
sand square feet of land ; and flats, docks, and wharf-rights ob- 
tained of the extent of one hundred and forty-two thousand 
square feet. All this was accomplished in the centre of a popu- 
lous city, not only without any tax, debt, or burden upon its 
pecuniary resources, but with large permanent additions to its 
real and productive property." The land made by filling up 
the dock on a part of which the Market-house stands sold for 
enough to pay the whole expense of the operation, while the tax- 
able property of the city was increased by the value of the ware- 
houses built upon it. It was thought not inappropriate by many 
citizens of that day, that the building should bear the name of 
the magistrate whose pains and skill had virtually made a free 
gift of it to the city. But this suggestion was overruled, and 
his name given only to the large hall over the centre of the 
Market-house. But 1 believe that the people to this day know 

* A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston duriiig two Centuries, 
from Sptitember 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830, p. 74. 



400 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

and speak of it only as " The Quincy Market," a derivation of 
the title which its contriver regarded as much more honorable to 
himself, as proceeding directly from the sovereign fountain of 
honor, than if it had been formally conferred. 

It is hardly necessary to say that Mr. Quiucy gave great atten- 
tion to the condition and improvement of the public schools, and 
I believe they had never been in a better state than they were 
during his official term. The only innovation which was at- 
tempted in his time upon the old customs of the town was an ex- 
perimental High School for girls, which had a brief trial of a 
year or two, and was then abandoned. The suggestion of the 
establishment of a school for carrying the education of girls to 
as advanced a point as that of boys in the Latin and High 
Schools, was one which naturally commended itself to the gen- 
eral public, and the experiment was fairly tried under the 
mastership of Mr. Ebenezer Bailey, a teacher of great experi- 
ence and skill. In one sense it only succeeded too well. The 
number of candidates fit for admission was entirely beyond the 
capacity of the school-house at the start, with the prospect of 
growing still larger every year. And in one important respect 
the plan was found not to work as its projectors had expected it 
would. The majority of the girls who could pass the preliminary 
examination were found to come from the wealthier classes, who 
could purchase for them special instruction, or were competent to 
afford it themselves. More than half the candidates came from 
private schools. Without going into the details of the question, 
the practical objections to the scheme seemed insuperable, and it 
was abandoned. This conclusion of the whole matter gave rise to 
great discontent, and brought much obloquy upon Mr. Quincy, 
who was known to regard the plan as impracticable, although the 
city government, as a body, consented to the final action. He 
submitted patiently to be the object of this popular injustice, be- 
ing fully persuaded in his own mind that the course the matter 
took was right and necessary. And his judgment on this point 
was confirmed by the fact that the scheme was not revived until 
after many years, when it took the form of the present admirable 
Normal School, of which Boston has just reason to be proud. 



VISIT OF LAFAYETTE. 401 

The visit of General Lafaj'ette to the United States occurred 
during Mr. Quincy's mayoralty, and it was his good fortune to 
invite and welcome him to the hospitalities of Boston. It was a 
season of general joy, unbroken by a whisper of dissent, in which 
both political parties, and every religious sect, and all conditions 
of men, united in expressing their gratitude to the early friend of 
their country. As soon as it was known that General Laf;iyette 
proposed coming to America, the City Council of Boston di- 
rected the Mayor to invite him to land in their city, from which 
he had sailed when he took his departure from the country more 
than forty years beforej The following correspondence accord- 
ingly took place between them : — 

Mr. QurxcY to Gexeral Lafayette. 

" United States of America, Boston, March 20, 1824. 
" Sir : — Your intention to visit the United States has been made 
known to its citizens by the proceedings of their national Legislature. 
The city of Boston shares in the universal pleasure which the expecta- 
tion of so interesting an event has diffused ; but it has causes of satis- 
faction peculiarly its own. Many of its inhabitants recollect, and all 
have heard, of your former residence in this metropolis, — of the de- 
light with Avhich you were greeted on your second visit to this country, 
— and of the acclamations of a grateful multitude which attended 
you, when sailing from this harbor, on your last departure from the 
United States, — and also of that act of munificence by which in later 
times you extended the hand of relief in their distress. These cir- 
cumstances have impressed upon the inhabitants of this city a vivid 
recollection of your person, and a peculiar interest in your character, 
endearing you to their remembrance bj' sentiments of personal grati- 
tude, as well as by that sense of national obligation with which the 
citizens of the United States are universally penetrated. With feel- 
ings of this kind the City Council of Boston, in accordance with the 
general wish of their constituents, have directed me to address this let- 
ter to you, and to express the hope, that, should it comport with ^cur 
convenience, you would do them the honor, on yom* ensuing visit to 
the United States, to disembark in this city, and to communicate the 
assurance that no event could possibly be more grateful to its inhab- 
itants, — that nowhere could you meet with a more cordial welcome, — 
that you could find nowhere hearts more capable of appreciating your 

z 



402 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUIXCY. 

early zeal and sacrlfict's in the cause of American freedom, or more 
ready to aeknowledoe and honor that characteristic uniformity of virtue 
with which, through a long life, and in scenes of unexampled diiliculty 
and danger, you have steadfastly maintained the cause of an enlight- 
ened civil liberty, in both hemispheres. 

" Very respectfully, I am your obedient servant, 

"JosiAH QuiNCY." 

General Lafayette to Mr. Quincy. 

• " Paris, May 26, 1S24. 

" Sir : — Amidst the new and high marks of benevolence the people 
of the United States and their representatives have lately deigned to 
confer upon me, I am proud and happy to recognize those particular 
sentiments of the citizens of Boston which have blessed and delighted 
the first years of my public career, and the grateful sense of which has 
ever since been my reward and support. 

" I joyfully anticipate the day, not very remote, thank God, when 1 
may revisit the glorious cradle of American, and in future, I hope, of 
universal liberty. Your so honorable and gratifying invitation would 
have been directly complied with, in the case to which you please to 
all'ide. But while I profoundly feel the honor intended by the offer 
ol d national ship, I hope I shall incur no blame by the determination 
I have taken to embark as soon as it is in my power on board a private 
vessel. Whatever port 1 shall first attain, I shall with the same eager- 
ness hasten to Boston, and present its beloved, revered inhabitants, as 
I have the honor to offer it to you, sir, with the homage of my affec- 
tionate gratitude and devoted respect. 

" Lafayette." 

Lnfayette arrived in Nevir York on the 16th of August, 1824, 
and four days afterwards left that city for Boston, and entered 
upon the triumphal progress in which he passed through the land. 
He arrived at the house of his old companion in arm-^, Governor 
Eustis, on the evening of the 23d, where he passed the night. 
Tlie next morning he was escorted by a cavalcade of citizens to 
the city, at the boundary of which he was met by Mr. Quincy, 
who received him with the following address: — 

" General Lafayette : — The citizens of Boston welcome you on 
your return to the United States, — mindful of your early zeal in the 
cause of American Independence, grateful for your distinguished 



VISIT OF LAFAYETTE. 403 

share lu the perils and glories of its achievement. When, urged by a 
generous sympathy, you first landed on these shores, you found a peo- 
ple engaged in an arduous and eventful struggle for liberty, with ap- 
parently inadequate means, and amidst dubious omens. 

" After the lapse of nearly half a century, you find the same people 
prosperous beyond all hope or precedent, — their liberty secure, sitting 
in its strength, without fear and without reproach. 

" In your youth you joined the standard of three millions of people, 
raised in an unequal and uncertain conflict. In your advanced age 
you return and are met by ten millions of people, their descendants, 
whose hearts throng hither to greet your approach and to rejoice 
in it." 

Here Mr. Quincy was interrupted by the shouts of the multi- 
tude around, and, after pausing until the tumult had in some 
degree subsided, he thus continued : — 

" This is not the movement of a turbulent populace, excited by the 
fresh laurels of some recent conqueror. It is a grave, moral, in- 
tellectual impulse. A whole people in the enjoyment of fi'eedom as 
perfect as the condition of our nature permits recur, with gratitude 
increasing with the daily increasing sense of their blessings, to the 
memory of those who, by their labors and in their blood, laid the 
foundation of our liberties. 

" Your name, sir, — the name of Lafayette, — is associated with the 
most perilous and most glorious periods of our Revolution, — with the 
imperishable name of Washington, and of that numerous host of heroes 
which adorn the proudest archives of American history, and are engra- 
ven in indelible traces on the hearts of the whole American people. 

*' Accept, then, sir, in the sincere spirit in which it is offered, this 
simple tribute to your virtues. Again, sir, the citizens of Boston bid 
you welcome to the cradle of American Independence, and to scenes 
consecrated with the blood shed by the earliest martyrs in Its cause." 

General Lafayette then made tlie following reply : — 
" The emotions of gratitude and love which I have been accustomed 
to feel on my entering this city have ever been mingled with a sense 
of religious reverence for the cradle of American, and, let us hope it 
will be hereafter said, of universal liberty. What must be, sir, my 
feelings, at the blessed moment when, after so long an absence, I' find 
myself again surrounded by the good citizens of Boston — when I am 
so affectionately, so honorably welcomed, not only by my old friends, 
but by several successive generations, — when I can witness the pros- 



404 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

perity, the immense improvements, that have been the just reward of 
a noble struggle, virtuous morals, and truly republican institutions ! 

" I beg of you all, beloved citizens of Boston, to accept the respect- 
ful and warm thanks of a heart which has, for nearly half a century, 
been particularly devoted to your illustrious city." 

The procession wound slovi^lj through the shouting streets, 
every window, every balcony, and every roof being alive with 
eager spectators. " But where is the moh ? " demanded the 
General of Mr. Quincy, who had left his own carriage, and taken 
Lis place by the side of Lafayette in his barouche, after the for- 
malities of reception were finished. " This is all we have to 
show you, sir, in the way of mob." Lafayette declared after- 
wards, that the crowd which greeted him in the streets of Boston 
appeared to him " like a picked population out of the whole 
human race." It was a delicious day, — clear, cool, and calm, — 
in perfect accordance with the joyful and brilliant scene. La- 
fayette passed through the principal streets, and between rows of 
the school-children on the Common, to the State-House, where 
he was officially received by Governor Eustis, and thence to the 
house making the corner of Park and Beacon Streets, facing on 
Beacon Street. It was then a club-house, and it was offered to 
the city by the club for the purposes of this great hospitality. 
The city had the house completely furnished and provided with a 
proper staff of servants, and put their guest into his own house ; 
and within those walls he was the host, and they the guests. 

In the evening, after a great civic dinner at the Exchange Cof- 
fee-house, he visited Mr. and Mrs. Quincy at their town house in 
Hamilton Place, where a party of friends were invited to meet 
him. Mrs. Quincy received him witii the grace and sweetness 
which marked her manners ; and a young friend of the family, a 
gentleman of great refinement and sensibility, declared, thirty 
years afterwards, that he accounted it one of the felicities of his 
liiie that he was present at this introduction, and heard the fitness 
and elegance of her few words of welcome. This, however, was 
the second visit he had paid that evening. The first, as was fit, 
was given to the widow of Governor Hancock, his hostess on his 
former visits to Boston. As he was passing tJarough the streets 



VISIT OF LAFAYETTE. 406 

that morning, in the midst of all the tumult of welcome, he re- 
membered his old friend, and said to my father, " Pray tell me, 
is the widow of John Hancock yet alive?" "O yes," was the 
answer, "and I have no doubt that we shall see her at one of 
the windows as we pass by." " If vou see her, have the good- 
ness to let me know it," replied Lafayette. As they were pass- 
ing along what is now Tremont Street, fronting the Common, my 
father espied the venerable dame seated in an honorable post of 
observation on a balcony overlooking the scene. " There is Han- 
cock's widow. General," said he. " Tell the coachman," said the 
General, " to draw up opposite the place." This being done, 
Lafayette rose and saluted her with a profound bow, which she 
returned by as profound a courtesy, the crowd cheering the pair 
with great enthusiasm. And hers was the first private house 
which he entered in Boston. 

His reception at Cambridge the next two days — Commence- 
ment and the annual celebration of the Phi Beta Kappa Society 
— was but a continuation of the same warm-hearted welcome. 
No one who was present on Thursday, when Mr. Everett delivered 
the Oration before the Society, concluding it with a peroration of 
welcome to Lafayette, can ever forget the scene. The audience 
was largely made up of studious and professional men, not usual- 
ly demonstrative in their ways ; but the eloquent words of the 
.orator, and the more eloquent presence of the nation's guest, 
roused it to the highest pitch of enthusia>tic excitement. Tears 
from eyes unused to weep rolled down furrowed cheeks, and old 
men, as well as young men and maidens, were fairly taken off 
their feet by the Very tempest and whirlwind of the passion of 
that glorious hour. On these two days Lafayette had an oppor 
tunity of showing that remarkable readine-s of mind of his, which, 
if it were not talent, since it is the fashion to deny this to him, was 
at least an excellent substitute for it. As a general rule, on oc- 
casions of formal receptions, the speeches are written beforehnnd, 
and copies exchanged, so that the spontaneousness may be prop- 
erly prepared. As my father was conducting Lafayette to Cam- 
bridge on Commencement morning, they were stopped in Cam- 
bridgeport by a deputation of the inhabitants, headed by Judge 



406 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Samuel P. P. Fay, on liorseback, who made a suitable address of 
welcome in the name of the citizens of Cambridge. It was an 
entire surprise, but Lafayette replied with perfect fluency and 
appropriateness, making all the proper complimentary allusions to 
the Revolutionary iiistory of the town, in as finished a manner as 
if he had had a week to write it in. At the dinner of the Phi 
Beta Kappa Society on Thursday, called up by the drinking of 
his health with all the honors, he concluded a felicitous speech 
with a classical compliment to Mr. Everett, as happy — if a trifle 
hyperbolical — as perhaps was ever made. From the circum- 
stances of the case, all of which I do not now remember, my 
father was satisfied that it was literally an impromptu. It was 
to this effect, — " The young American Cicero of to-day, 'Quae 
est in hominibus tanta perversitas, ut, inventis frugibus, glande 
vescantur ! ' " * 

Lafayette always spoke of himself as an American, when re- 
ferring to the days of the Revolution. One evening at a party 
my mother said to him, " The American cockade was black and 
white, was it not. General ? " " Yes, madam," he replied, " it 
was black at first; but when the French came and joined us, we 
added the white in compliment to them!" On the day of his 
arrival, an old soldier would press through the crowd in the State- 
House, and cried out, " You don't remember me, General ; but I 
was close to you when we stormed our I'edoubt at Y'orktown." 
(It will be I'emembered there were two redoubts to be carried, 
essential to the success of the movement, one of which was as- 
signed to Lafayette and his American division, and the other 
to the French troops.) "I was ju»t behind Captain Smith. 
You remember Captain Smith ? He was shot through the 
head just as he mounted the redoubt." " Ah, yes, yes ! I 
remember," returned Lafayette. " Poor Captain Smith ! £ut 
we beat the French ! We beat the French ! ! " 

On Sunday he dined with Mr. Adams at Quincy, and after- 
wards visited my father's family at his country-seat. " That was 
not the John Adams I remember ! " said he, sadly, — a sentiment 
which was reciprocated by Mr. Adams, who said, the next time 

* Cicero, Orator, Cap. 9. 



COLONEL HUGER. 407 

some one of the family saw him, " That was not the Lafayette 
that I remember ! " It would have been strange if it had been, 
considering that more than forty years (and such years!) had 
passed over their heads since they last parted. 

Shortly after Lafayette's departure from Boston he introduced 
two distinguished and interesting persons to my father by letter. 
The first was Colonel Huger of South Carolina, whose attempt 
to rescue him from his imprisonment at Olmutz made him doubly 
interesting just at that time. The letter of introduction is as 
follows : — 

General Lafayette to Mr. Quincy. 

" New York, September 20, 1824. 
"My dear Sir: — I have been so happy in our intimacy, and so 
sensible of your kindness to me, that I consider this letter of introduo 
tion as an act of gratitude to Colonel Huger, towards whom you know 
ray Olmutz obligation. Be pleased to welcome and present him to my 
Bostonian friends ; both of which I am sure you will do very heartily. 
Happy I would be to accompany him to Boston, and to find myself 
again in that dear city ; but I am proceeding to the South, and must 
defer to the next spring the gratification to tell you in person how 
gratefully and affectionately I am your most sincere friend, 

" Lafayette. 

" My son and M. Levasseur beg their respects to be presented to 
you and your family, to whom I request you to offer the affectionate and 
grateful sentiments which bind me to you, your lady, and children." 

I copy from my sister's unpublished memoir of my mother her 
account of Colonel Huger's visit. 

" After Lafayette returned to New York, he Avrote to Mr. Quincy, 
on the 20th of September, to introduce Colonel Huger ; in speaking 
of whom, during his visit, he had said, ' I never saw Huger but for 
ten minutes ; but for ten years his countenance was never absent 
from my mind.' On the 2d of October a party consisting chiefly of 
members of the Common Council of Boston dined with Mr. Quincy ; 
and at the name of Colonel Huger, associated with that of Lafayette, 
every countenance expressed animated interest. Mrs. Quincy, on 
receiving him, said, ' We all are under obligations to you, Colonel 
Uugeri for your attempt to rescue Lafayette from Olmutz.' ' I only 



408 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

did my duty, madam,' was his reply. ' I considered myself the repre- 
sentative of the young men of America, and acted accordingly. If I 
have deserved their approbation, it is a full rewai'd.' 

" Colonel Huger, in 1824, was about fifty-one years of age, — manly 
and polished in his personal appearance and address, his countenance 
and manner indicative of self-command. His conversation marked 
him as a man of honor and integrity, extensive information, and 
knowledge of the world; evincing singular modesty respecting his own 
(laims and opinions, and great deference for those of others. In con- 
tradicting a statement in the newspapers, that lie was in early life 
a"quainted with Lafayette in America, he said : ' When Tvafayette 
first arrived on the coast of Carolina, accompanied by the Baron de 
Kalb and several officers, they were pursued by British cruisers, and 
were very anxious to land. My fiither then resided on North Island ; 
and two of his negroes, being out in a boat late in the evening, were 
boarded by another boat containing Lafayette and the Baron de Kalb, 
and were induced to pilot them to my father's house. As tlie depreda- 
tions of British vessels caused great alarm, doors and windows were 
barred against these officers ; but when they succeeded in making 
themselves known, they were hospitably received, and the next, day 
attended to Charleston, on their way to join the American army. I 
was at that time a child of three years old, and have no recollection 
of these circumstances, except from hearing them often mentioned by 
my family.' " 

The next day, Sunday, Colonel Huger spent at Quincy with 
our family, and after dinner he gave us a detailed account of his 
Olmutz attempt. I well remember the breathless interest with 
which it was listened to, and could record most of the particulars. 
But this has been already done in an authentic shape. It is a 
curious illustration of the slight circumstances on which im- 
portant matters turn, that had Huger spoken to Lafayette in 
French instead of English, and said, " Allez a HofF. " and not 
" Go to HofF," the escape would have been effected. The neces- 
sary arrangements had been made at Hoff for expediting the 
flight of the prisoner ; but Lafayette understood the direction to 
be " Go off" and, taking his way at random, was soon overtaken 
and carried back to captivity. Colonel Huger, I remember, 
amused us with an account of the singular privilege he had en- 
joyed just before, in New York, of seeing himself represtnted on 



coiraT VIDUA. 409 

the stage. It was in a drama, got up to order, entitled " The 
Castle of Olmutz," in which he was made to be in love with the 
governor's daughter, who assisted in the evasion. 
The other letter of introduction was as follows : — 

General Lafayette to Mr. Quincy. 

" Boston, September 4. 
" My dear Sir : — Count Vidua, a distinguished Piedmontese, af- 
ter having travelled over a great part of the Old World, as it is called, 
is now on a tour through the United States. He has been introduced 
to me in very high terms by my friends Humboldt and Segur.. Permit 
me to recommend him to your kind notice. Present my affectionate 
regard to your family, and believe me forever your sincere and gi-ate- 
ful friend, 

" Lafayette." 

Count Vidua was the son of a prime minister of the king of 
Sardinia, and a man of high intelligence, infinite curiosity, and 
vast information. Mr. Adams said that lie put questions to him 
concerning the American Revolution which no other foreigner 
had ever asked. And I have before me a letter from him to my 
fathei', describing the collection he had made of works relating to 
the early history of the country, and asking for assistance in pro- 
curing 'others, and also information as to '' the political, beneficent, 
municipal, literary, commercial, and manufacturing institutions 
and establishments " of the country, and especially everything in 
relation to the public scliools ; which shows the extent of his 
knowledge, and his thirst for more. He says that he had con- 
sulted with Mr. Webster about printed works on general politics 
and the Federal Constitution, and " observed with pleasure that he 
had already collected all, or almost all, the remarkable writings on 
this topic." I well remember the Count. He was the ugliest and 
most ungainly of mortal men. The Great President would have 
shone a marvel of grace and beauty by his side. But he had 
withal an air of distinction and high breeding which qualified his 
personal disadvantages, and his conversation was full of curious 
interest and intelligent observation. President John Quincy 
Adams said of Count Vidua, whose thirst for universal knowl- 
edge so strongly resembled his own, that, "after talking awhile 
18 



410 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

with him, he would forget his looks, and think him absolutely a 
handsome man!" The following extract from my father's 
journal I insert here, although it relates to a second visit which 
Count Vidua paid to B.oston : — 

" Count Charles Vidua, son of the late prime minister of the king 
of Sardinia, with M. Niederstetter, Prussian Charge d' Affaires, passed 
the evening with my family at Quincy. Two Englishmen a>so, re- 
cently graduated at Cambridge, England, Mr. St. Aubyn and Mr. 
ITallam, were of my company. 

" Vidua has travelled through the greater part of Europe, Russian 
Asia, Palestine, to the Upper Cataracts of the Nile, and through Lap- 
land, — is now on a visit to the United States. Scrutinizing, inquisi- 
tive, intelligent, — a collector of everything connected with the history 
of this country. He considered the Unitarianisui of this part of the 
country as little else than pure Deism ; and, though denied, yet to be 
such in fact. It is true, Unitarians spoke of Clirist as ' our Saviour,' — 
Christ, ' our Redeemer ' ; but it was very plain that the notion they 
affixed to it was that of quality and not of power, and the terms were 
used as matter of honor, as when we call a man ' Your Excellency,' — 
but all feeling of reverence, as being a peculiar emanation from the 
Divine nature, was lost, or not felt. This he thought a great mischief. 
Speaking on politics, he observed that nothing had so much shaken 
him as to tlie future destinies of the United States as the near success 
of Jackson to the Presidency, since the fact indicated the strong hold 
military prowess had on the affections of the people of the United 
States. Vidua is uncommonly intent in researches upon the history 
and present state of this country. Niederstetter Is gentlemanly and 
well-informed. The two Englishmen also were travelling for purposes 
of improvement, and seemed well-informed and interesting young men." 

Baron von Niederstetter was the Prussian Minister at Wash- 
ington, and as handsome as the Piedmontese nobleman was 
ugly. Messrs. St. Aubyn and Hallam wei-e modest, cultivated, 
and high-bred English gentlemen, of which class we did not see 
many examples in this country in those days. The former 1 
presume to be the Cornish gentleman who has lately (18G6) re- 
ceived a baronetcy from Lord Derby, Sir Edward St. Aubyn, of 
St. Michael's Mount, whence 

" The great Vision of the guarded Mount 
Looks towards Namancos and Baj'ona's hold ! " 



HIS LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY, JUNIOR. 411 

During the year 1824, my father gave much of his leisure to 
the preparation of the memoir of my grandfather, which was 
pubHshed in the spring of 1825, just fifty years after the death 
of its subject. In this pious work he was greatly assisted by my 
eldest sister, Eliza Susan Quincy. Its progress was a source of 
constant interest to the family ; but the secret of its intended 
j)uhlit'ation was so well kept, that no hint of it got wind, and the 
first intimation that any person beyond the family circle and the 
printing-office had tliat such a book was thought of, was the ad- 
vertisement on the morning it appeared. It was very handsome- 
ly got up, and so carefully corrected that it waS" absolutely with- 
out a misprint. Its value as illusti-ating the times immediately 
preceding the Revolution is, I believe, allowed by all students 
of that passage of our history. The following testimony of Mr. 
Webster on this point has been preserved by my sister in her 
memoir of my mother. In liis great discourse on the laying of 
the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17th, 1825, he 
had introduced this quotation from my grandfather as illustrative 
of the spirit of the Revolutionary fathers. "The sentiment of 
Quincy," said Mr. Webster, " was full in their hearts. ' Bland- 
ishments,' said that distinguished son of genius and patriotism, 
' will not fascinate us, nor will the threats of a halter intimidate; 
for, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, 
or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die 
freemen.' " On the evening of that immortal day Mr. and Mrs. 
Webster gave a great party to General Lafayette in the house 
in Summer Street where they then lived. A door had been 
opened between Mr. Webster's house and that of Mr. Israel 
Thorndike, thus throwing the two into one, and it was a very 
brilliant assembly, from the number of eminent persons col- 
lected there, — many foreigners and distinguished Americans 
from all parts of the country having resorted to Boston on that 
memorable occasion. At this party, my mother having thanked 
Mr. Webster for his compliment to Josiah Quincy, Jr., the fol- 
lowing conversation ensued : — 

" ' There is no need of my help in that cause,' was his reply. ' The 
memoir Mr. Quincy has published will be an enduring monument. It 



412 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

is one of the most interesting books I ever read, and brings me nearer 
than any other to the spirit which caused the American Revolution. 
Josiah Quincy, Jr. was a noble character. I love him because he 
loved the law. How zealous he was in seeking out the Celebrated law- 
yers, in copying their reports, in studying the laws of the diiferent 
Colonies ! There are no such men now-a-days. Who keeps such jour 
nals ? ' Mrs. Quincy replied, ' I hope you do, Mr. Webster.' ' No, I 
do not. The times are far different. The members of Congress do 
not write such letters now.' Referring to the scene of the morning, he 
then said : ' I never desire to see again such an awful sight as so many 
thousand human faces all turned toward me. It was, indeed, a sea of 
faces I beheld at that moment.' Doctor Warren informed Mrs. Quincy 
that he had put the Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Jr. under the corner- 
stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, among the memorials of the 
Revolution." 

The visit of Lafayette at this time was very brief, and he was 
the guest of Mr. Lloyd, then Senator from Massachusetts. On 
the evening before the 17th, he attended a reception given by my 
mother in Hamilton Place, and on the 18th he paid his farewell 
visit to Mr. Adams at Quincy, accompanied by my father. Mr. 
Adams was then ninety years of age, and the parting, never to 
meet again on earth, of these two men of the Revolution was a 
touching and impressive scene. In the evening Lafayette at- 
tended the Boston Theatre, where an overwhelming multitude 
assembled to take their last leave of their fathers' friend and 
their own. The following letter from Lafayette was the last my 
father received from him on this side the Atlantic, just before 
this Bunker Hill visit. It is written in just about the pretty 
kind of broken English which he spoke. 

" Albant, June 12, 1825. 
" My dear Sir : — Thus far have I come to redeem my sacred and 
most cordial pledge. We shall reach Boston on the 15th. I will tell 
you, between us, that I have been informed the Legislature intend to 
receive my personal respects ; in which case it becomes proper for mo 
to be arrived two days before the Bunker Hill ceremony. As to what 
I am to do, I cannot do better than to refer myself to your friendly 
advice, and shall hastily offer you and family my most affectionate, 

grateful respects, 

" Lafayette. 



VISITORS. 413 

" I would have been very happy to celebrate with you the Fourth of 
(July, but am obliged to set out on the 20th to visit the States of Maine, 
New Hampshire, Vermont, and will proceed down the North River 
to New York, then to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and the 
seats of the Virginia Ex-Presidents, so as to embark on the 15th of 
August." 

^ During the years that Mr. Quincy was Mayor of Boston his 
wife and family spent the summers at Quincy, as before. He 
himself remained in town to be ready for any unexpected emer- 
gency, paying frequent visits to his country-house, but seldom 
spending the night there. The farm he let, retaining only the 
grounds appertaining to the house. He maintained his custom 
of giving a dinner-party almost every Saturday, and in the sum- 
mer these entertainments were always had at Quincy. He had 
somewhat enlarged the material of his dinner-company since his 
mayoi'alty, in consequence of his determination to break up the 
ancient custom of the town authorities, of feasting at the public 
expen-e. To these convivial customs he put a peremptory end ; 
but, by way of consolation to the afflicted officials, he made it a 
rule to invite all the city government, in convenient detachments, 
to dine with him, at least once a year, either in town or at 
QuincyC Almost all strangers of condition, either from Europe 
or other parts of the United States, brought letters of introduc- 
tion, or were visited ex officio, and were generally entertained at 
his table. Among these I recall the Duke Bernhard de Saxe 
Vl'"eimar, the second son of the friend of Goethe. His Highness 
expected to find Indians in the streets of Boston, and expressed 
great surprise that ladies should venture so far into the wilder- 
ness as the Falls of Niagara ; and he had provided good store 
of books, ' clothes, arms, and other necessaries, supposing that 
such articles were not obtainable in the strange land to which he 
was bound. He was a man of fine presence, and of good intel- 
ligence on matters with which he was more familiar than the in- 
ternal condition of the United States.^ He arrived in the Dutch 
sloop-of-war Pallas, commanded by Captain Ryk, afterwards 
Admiral, a lively, homely little man, covered with orders and 
decorations. One of the officers of the Pallas was M. Van 



414 LIFE OF JOSIAH - QUINCY. 

Tromp, a descendant of the famous Admiral who 

" With his broom swept the chops of the Channel." 

When this young gentleman was introduced to Mr. Adams, the 
Ex-President waved his hand over his head, and called out, 
" Hurrah for Van Tromp! " "The officers of the Pallas gave 
a dance on board ship in return for the civilities they had 
received. Then there was Colonel Wilson, the son of the 
famous Sir Robert, who was himself aide de camp to Bolivar, 
and had seen battles in the cause of South American indepen- 
dence. He was a very young man then, and afterwards rose to 
distinction in the diplomatic line, and died not long since Sir 
Belford Wilson, K. C. B. Then there was the Baron Wallen- 
stein, connected with some one of the Continental legations at 
Washington, small, plain, polished, full of knowledge, speaking 
and writing English as few Englishmen can do, an animated 
talker, and a most agreeable companion. I think I have heard 
that his later career was not prosperous, and his end unhappy. 
But the procession of these images of past days might well fill 
up more space than 1 Iiave left myself, should I let it go on. 
They come like shadows, and like shadows let them depart, with 
those of the honored, the revered, the beloved, with which they 
are inextricably mingled in the memory of those long-gone days. 
I will not withhold, however, my father's account of a visit from 
General Morgan Lewis of New York, who, after serving in the 
army of the Revolution, and filling the offices of Chief Justice 
and Governor of his native State, finished his public career as 
one of the Major-Generals of the army of 1812. It is copied 
from one of his occasional fragmentary journals. 

" September 24. — P. M. At Quiney on a visit to fiimily. Morgan 
Lewis, his daughter, Mrs. (Maturin) Livingston, and two dauglitei's, 
also Mr. Schley and lady, passed the evening with n)y tamlly. 
Visited old President Adams, accompanied by Lewis and Schley. 
Found the old man in body weak and helpless, bearing all the marks 
of extreme old age. His mind vigoi'ous and active, though slow in its 
operations. The conversation turned upon the mission which he. Doc- 
tor Franklin, and Edward Rutledge executed by the order of Congress 
in 1777, when they met Lord Howe, at his request, on Stateu Island. 



VISITORS. ■ 415 

' Lord Howe,' said Mr. Adams, ' spoke with great feeling of the monu- 
ment which Massachusetts had raided to his brother * in Westminster 
Abbey ; and said that nothing would give him so great pain as to wit- 
ness the fall of a State to which his family owed so great a distinction. 
Doctor Franklin replied, " Your Lordship may be assured that we 
shall do our best endeavors that your Lordship may be spared so 
great suffering." Lord Howe told us,' said Mr. Adams, ' that his 
orders were such that he could not receive us in the character of 
envoys or commissioners from Congress ; that his instructions were, 
to open negotiations and hear proposals from any British subjects. 
I replied,' said Adams, ' that the only character in which I could not 
ueet his Lordship was that of a British subject.' 

" I told Mr Adams that news had just arrived that his son, the pres- 
ent President of the United States, had set out on a visit to him. It 
was unexpected. ' Well,' said he, ' I shall then see him once more. 
I had thought I had taken leave of him forever. God be thanked ! ' 

" In tlie evening conversed with Lewis on various events of our 
Revolution. He is now seventy-one years of age ; had entered early 
into the war of the Revolution, and continued in the army until the 
end. He said that the capture of General Lee was, in his opinion, 
the most fortunate event of the war ; that if it had not happened, he 
thought there would have been great danger that Washington would 
have been superseded. He said that Samuel Adams was the head of 
the party in Congress oppof^ed to Washington, and that Gates of New 
York and Mifflin of Pennsylvania were both concerned in it. Both 
Gates and Mifflin had personal causes of discontent. They each had 
respectively requested commands of Washington, which, from his sense 
of public service, he was compelled to deny. Afler the battle of 
Brandy wine. Gates and Ills' adherents could not conceal their satisfac- 
tion at the event, as they thought it would effect a riddance of him 
from the command of the army 

" Mr. Schley had been personally acquainted with the late AVilliam 
Pinkney at the bar of Maryland. He considered him one of the most 
able men our country had ever produced, — a man of constant and in- 
finite labor, — yet possessed with the foolish vanity of desiring that his 
labored eflusions should appear the effect of genius and of sudden 
inspiration. He concealed, therefore, as much as possible his studies, 
and was in the habit of resorting to a thousand poor tricks and con- 
trivances, that his arguments might appear spontaneous. His love for 

* Tlie Lord Howe who was killed July 6, 1758, in the unsuccessful expedi- 
tion against Ticonderoga, in the Old French War. 



416 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the i)rofession of the law was extreme, which he took every possible 
occasion to avow and to evidence." 

The following scrap of history from the same journal is worth 
preserving : — 

" September 23. — In evening, with Lieutenant-Governor Phillips, 
He told me this anecdote of the late Samuel Adams. At the time of 
the Convention in Massachusetts for the adoption of the Federal Con- 
stitution, Adams and Hancock were known originally to be opposed 
to it. Those in favor of it had used various means to excite the peo- 
ple, and among others a meeting of the mechanics and others was held 
at the Green Dragon. To the opinion of those who met there, Adams 
was peculiarly alive. It happened that one day in the later period of 
the session Adams dined with Mr. Phillips. During dinner it was 
announced that a meeting had just been held at the Green Dragon, 
at which it was voted that ' we loill have the Federal Constitution.' 
' Well,' said Adams, 'if tliey ivill have it, they must have it'; — and 
from that time he voted in favor of it." 

The election of Mr. John Quincy Adams to the Presidency of 
the United States, in February, 1825, gave a new nnd peculiar 
interest to tlie intercourse of our family with the great statesman 
whom it was his singular felicity to follow in the highest office in 
the nation. At the visit which he paid to his father in Septem- 
ber, 1825, we had frequently the curious satisfaction, never prob- 
ably to be had again, of seeing two Presidents' of the United 
States together, the one the son of the other. It is a happiness 
to be permitted to remember the glow of delight which lighted 
up the countenance and kindled anew the eyes of the father as 
he looked proudly on his son and successor, — a happiness en- 
hanced by the remembrance of the great parliamentaiy career 
of Jolin Quincy Adams, which has placed him apart from the 
vulgar herd of Presidents, and made his name onl^' less illustri- 
ous than those of Washington and of Lincoln. The last time 
that John Adams was in my father's house, where he had been 
the welcome and honored guest of three generations, was on the 
30th of September, 1825, when he entered and left it leaning on 
the arm of his son, the President. He frequently afterwards 
drove to the door and held audiences at the carriage-window, 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 417 

but his infirmities hindered him from, getting out. In the winter 
of 1826 my elder brother paid a visit to Washington, and pro- 
posed extending his journey into Virginia ; which, however, he 
was prevented from doing. Mr. Adams gave him this chai-acter- 
istic letter of introduction to Mr. Jefferson. It was the last he 
ever addressed to his famous successor, and is one of the last he 
ever wrote. At least, there are none of later date, excepting a 
couple of answers to invitations to public meetings, in his grand- 
son's edition of his Works. 

To Thomas Jefferson, Ex-Pkesident of the United States, 

MONTICELLO. 

"Qdinct, January 14, 1826. 
" My dear Sir : — Permit me to introduce to your acquaintance a 
young lawyer by the name of Josiah Quincy, with the title of Colonel, 
being ai^l to our Governor. The name of Colonel Quincy, I believe, 
has never been extinct for nearly two hundred years. He is a son of 
our Excellent Mayor of the city of Boston, and possesses a character 
unstained and irreproachable. I applaud his ambition to visit Monti- 
cello and its great inhabitant ; and, while I have my hand in, I can- 
not cease without giving you some account of the state of my mind. 
I am certainly very near the end of my life. I am very far fi-om tri- 
fling with the idea of death, which is a great and solemn event ; but I 
contemplate It without terror or dismay, — aut transit, aut Jinit. If 
Jinit, which I cannot believe and do not believe, there is then an end 
of all: but I shall never know it; and why should I dread it? — which 
I do not. If transit, I shall ever be under the same constitution and 
administration of government in the universe ; and I am not afraid to 
trust and confide in it. I am, as ever, your friend, 

"John Adams. 

On the 4th of July, 1826, the Jubilee of American Indepen- 
dence was celebrated throughout the United States. ^ The Rev- 
erend Henry Ware, Junior, had accepted the invitation of the 
city authorities of Boston to deliver the Oration on that day. 
Unfortunately, he was taken ill about a week before the anniver- 
sary, and was prevented from fulfilling his engagement. The 
city government then made a unanimous request to Mr. Quincy 
to perform the duty in his stead. Though the shortness of the 

18* ±X 



418 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

time niiglit have well excused his refusal, he would not permit 
his natural fear of doing himself less than justice on an occasion 
that demanded the best powers of the best man to stand in the 
way of the due performance of the ceremonies of the day. This 
Oration was probably none the worse for the raiiidity with which 
it was written, as the topics were not far to seek, and their 
treatment required rather spirit and life than meditation and 
research. It was certainly very well done, and sets forth the 
changes in political condition which the Revolution had caused, 
and the material development which the nation had undergone 
because of those changes, during half a century, in a clear, im- 
pressive, and eloquent manner. In enumerating the great Bos- 
tonians whose names are indissolubly connected with the Revo- 
lution, he thus spoke of Mr. Adams: — 

" Especially shall he not be forgotten, now or ever, — that ancient 
citizen of Boston, that patriarch of American Independence, of all 
New England's worthies on this day the sole survivor. He, indeed, 
oppressed bj years, sinking under the burdens of decaying nature, 
hears not our public song or voice of praise, or ascending prayer. 
But the sounds of a nation's joy, rushing from our cities, ringing Irom 
our valleys, echoing from our hills, shall break the silence of his aged 
ear ; the rising blessings of grateful millions shall visit with a glad 
light his fading vision, and flush the last shades of his evening sky 
with the reflected splendors of his meridian brightness." 

At the moment these words were uttered Mr. Adams was still 
alive ; but before the rejoicings of the day were over, the news 
came that he had died on that immortal anniversary. He had 
failed rapidly for the last two or three days, but he retained his 
faculties almost to the latest moment. The very last time he 
left his house was on the 1st of July, when he was lifted into his 
carriage to return a visit which my mother had paid him the day 
before. Having told her of this intention, he could not be dis- 
suaded from fulfilling it, and drove to the house, and held his last 
audience with the family at the carriage-window. The news of 
his death was not believed at first, the coincidence being almost 
too extraordinary for credence. But five days later yet greater 
astonishment fell upon the people, when it was announced that 



COERESPONDENCE WITH BISHOP CHEVERUS 419 

Thoma', Jefferson had also died on that day of jubilee. A sol- 
emn amazement filled the land as the strange intelligence spread, 
that these two long and eventful lives had been closed by deaths 
so fortunate on the fiftieth anniversary of the most illustrious 
event in their history and in that of their country. Due ob- 
servances were had everywhere in honor of their lives and in 
memory of their deaths, but none more striking or enduring than 
that held in Faneuil Hall, by the city of Boston, when Daniel 
Webster delivered his great discourse in the presence of John 
Quincy Adams, President of the United States, and of an audience 
in numbers and character worthy of the extraordinary occasion. 

I will here insert a few letters belonging to the year 1826. 
The correspondence with Bishop Cheverus expresses on my 
father's side the cordial respect and affection with which that 
admirable prelate was regarded by men of all religious persua- 
sions in the city where he long resided, and tells on the part of 
the Bishop how cordially that love and esteem was reciprocated 
by him. M. de Cheverus, an emigrant of the French Revolu- 
tion, was the first Catholic Bishop of Boston. Shortly before 
the death of Louis XVIII. he was summoned to France to be- 
come Bishop of Montauban. It was with reluctance . that he 
obeyed the royal command, and left the humble charge he had 
so long held in the very seat of " the Protestantism of the Prot- 
estant religion." He was subsequently translated from Montau- 
ban to fill the seat once occupied by Bossuet at Meaux, and 
afterwards to the Archiepiscopate of Bordeaux. In 1838 he 
received a Cardinal's hat from Pope Gregory XVI. Just before 
the fall of Clsarles X., Cardinal Cheverus was made a Count, and 
a member of the Chamber of Peers, but this dignity he lost by 
the Three Days of July. 

Mr. Quincy to Bishop Cheverus. 

"Boston, January 2, 1826. 

"Reverend and dear Sir: — I cannot permit your excellent 
friend, the Rev. Mr. Taylor, to depart, with an intention to proceed 
directly to Montauban, without bearing with him some evidence of 
my remembrance, and of those deep traces of respect which your 
long residence in* this city, and the uniform course of your conduct as 



420 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

a man and a Christian minister, have impressed upon the hearts of all 
who had the happiness of knowing or observing you. 

" Be assured, sir, as there is none who feels more strongly this senti- 
ment than myself, so there Is no one who is happier to seize every suit- 
able occasion to express It to yourself and others. Your memory is 
very precious and dear among us. Though absent, you are not forgot- 
ten, nor will be, so long as the generation which was contemporaneous 
with youi residence in this city survives. 

" The Rev. Mr. Taylor well supplied your place in the congregation 
over which you once presided, and In the city. Having learned of you 
the nature and character of our inhabitants, his course was shaped in 
a manner at once faithful to his flock and acceptable to those whose 
religious faith was not coincident with his. We part with him in 

friendship, with respect, and with regret 

" I remain, with great respect, most truly yours, 

"JosiAU QuiNCY." 

Bishop Cheverus to Mr. Quincy. 

"MoNTADBAN, April 8, 1826. 

"Dear and honored Sir: — The Rev. Mr. Taylor has just for- 
warded to me your kind and welcome letter of January 2d. It has 
not been for want of strong and repeated recommendations from me 
that the general wish In Boston has not been complied with at Rome.* 
But the one who Is now appointed is a worthy prelate, and was highly 
respected In New York and in Charleston, South Carolina. I have 
known him long since, and I have no doubt that he is already popular 
among my dear fellow-citizens of Boston. 

" I know that he will have your kind support, which has been so 
useful and so acceptable to myself. 

" If, as you have the goodness to assure me, I am not forgotten in 
Boston, I can say, with truth, I do not forget Boston. So dear and 
familiar Is the name of the beloved city, that even in conversation I 
say Boston instead of Montauban, and this often ; and I am then told, 
' You love Boston better than Montauban, but we defy the Bostonlans 
to love you more than we do.' I must acknowledge that here, as well 
as In America, love and respect are given me much beyond my deserts. 
A new Mayor of this city (the King appoints him) was Installed two 
months since. I was present, and thought much of the Mayor of 
Boston. In the inaugural speech the Viscount de GIronde, the new 

* Doubtless that the Rev. Father Taylor should be appointed Bishop of Bos- 
ton, ill tlie place of Bishop Cheverus. 



RANDOLPH'S LAST LETTER. 421 

magistrate, paid me a very handsome compliment. He went so far 
as to say, that it was his most ardent, wish to follow my steps, and to 
take my paternal administration, which had made this city a city of 
brothers, for the model of his, and by so doing to entitle himself to 
my kindness, and deserve my esteem. 

" I must confess I felt gratified, but I am not less so by the very 
kind and handsome testimony which your letter bears to my conduct 
while in Boston. The approbation of the noble-minded Mayor of 
Boston is indeed a valuable meed, and his friendship and esteem are 
treasures. Will he have the goodness to assure my fellow-citizens and 
friends in Boston, that my adopted country, and its kind and so dear 
inhabitants, will always be objects of my affectionate gi-atitude. 

" With affectionate respect, dear and honored sir, I remain your 
most obedient humble servant, 

" f Jonx, Bishop of Montauban." 

The following letter from John Randolph was in reply to one 
introducing my brother to his acquaintance, on the occasion of 
the same visit to Washington which procured the letter from 
Mr. Adams to Mr. Jefferson which I have already given. It is 
the last letter my father ever received from him, and its liveli- 
ness, wit, and pathos make it a fit conclusion of their correspond- 
ence. 

Mr. Randolph to Mr. Quixcy. 

" Washington, February 20, 1823. 
"Dear Sir: — Your letter was 'right welcome unto me,' as my 
favorite old English writers sing or say, but much more welcome was 
the bearer of it. Son of yours, even with far less claims from his own 
merit than this gentleman obviously possesses, shall never be shown my 
' cauld shoulther.' I hope that you '11 pardon my using the Waverley 
tongue, which I must fear bodes no good to the good old English afore- 
said, and which I shall therefore leave to them that like it, — which I 
do not, out of its place, — and not always there. In short, I have not 
catched the literary ' Scotch fiddle,' and, in despite of Dr. Blair, do 
continue to believe that Swift and Addison understood their own 
mother tongue as well as any Sawney ' benorth tha' Tweed.' Nay, 
further, not having the fear of the Edinburgh Reviewers before my 
eyes, I do not esteem Sir Walter to be a poet, or the Rev. Dr. Chal- 
mers a pulpit orator. But, as I do not admire Mr. Kean, I fear that 
my reputation for taste is, like my earthly tabernacle, in a hopeless state. 



422 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" The fuss made about that mountebank, who is the very fellow — ■ 
although not ' periwig-pated ' — ; that Shakespeare describes, has, I con- 
fess, disgusted me not a little. What are we made of, to take sides in 
the factions of the circus (green or blue), and to doat upon the profes- 
sions of ' feeling ' and ' sentiment ' and ' broken-heartedness ' from the 
lips or pen of a fellow whose vocation it is to deal in those commodi- 
ties, — who has a stock of them in his travelling pack, like an Irish 
fortune-hunter on a visit to a ' young ladies' seminary ' of learning 
anything but good ? For my part, like Burchell in the Vicar of 
Wakefield, I say nothing, but cry, ' Fudge ! ' 

"By the common law, stage-players come under the description and 
penalties of vagrants and sturdy beggars. To be sure, Shakespeare 
was on the stage, and Garrick and Siddons and Kemble were stage- 
players ; but, you know, exceptio prohat regulam. 

'' I did not (when I began) intend to have turned the page, but must 
do it to say, that the stage comes emphatically under Lord Byron's 
sweeping ban and anathema against the world, as 

' One wide den of thieves, or — what you will.' 

" My right hand has foi'got its cunning. W^ith great respect and 
every good wish to you and yours, I am, dear sir, your obedient ser- 
vant, 

" John Randolph of Roanoke." 

" P. S. — I often think on ' Auld Lang Syne ' [more Scotch]. Though 
' seas between us broad have rolled ' since those days, I have a perfect 
recollection of most of them. I can see you now just as you were 
when a certain great man that now is was beginning to be, — but why 
revive what is better forgot ? One thing, however, I will revive (what 
I shall never forget), your kindness to my poor boy, — ' the last of the 
family,' — fori am nothing; it will soon be utterly extinct. He lies 
in Cheltenham churchyard. I bought the ground. I need not say 
that it was my first pilgrimage in England. As you go from the 
Town to the Spring, he lies on the right hand* of the pathway 
through the churchyard, leaving the church on your left." 

The following note from Mr. Randolph to my brother is too 
characteristic to be omitted : — 

* " Close to the wall there is an iron railing and a stone, put up, like all other 
things clone by agency of distant people, very badly. They thought that I 
would never see it; charged a high price; and I was indebted to one of poor 
Tudor's schoolfellows for its repair, not very long before I saw it. I think I 
Bent you a copy of the epitaph." 



LETTERS FROM LAFAYETTE. 428 

Mr. Randolph to Mr. J. Quincy, Junior. 

" Capitol Hill, Dawson's, No. 2, Thursday. 
" If Mr. Josiah Quincy, Junior, will waive ceremony, and accept this 
return for bis card from an old and very infirm man, Mr. Randolph 
will be very glad to see his father's son (not Mr. R.'s, but Mr. Q.'s 
father's) at any time before half past ten or eleven in the morning, or 
between the adjournment of the Senate and eight o'clock, which is 
Mr. R.'s bedtime. Mr. R. is much obliged to Mr. Q. for the letter 
which he was so good as to leave here yesterday. It gave him great 
pleasure once more to hear from one with whom he had passed 
through some trying political scenes; and for whom he then enter- 
tained, and hopes always to cherish, sentiments of great esteem and 
regard." 

These letters from Lafayette need no preface or explanation. 
General Lafayette to M^. Quincy. 

" La Grange, July 20, 1820. 

" My dear Sir : — Former letters of acknowledgment have ex- 
pressed my grateful feelings for the precious volume you have sent me 
before my sailing for Europe. It has interested me in the highest de- 
gree, not only on account of its literary merit, and my warm affection 
for the author, but still more so from a sense of lively concern in the 
first times of the Revolution, and of admiration for the great and 
devoted patriot whose memoirs have been published in a manner 
worthy of him. Nor will I omit to observe that, in the beauty of the 
material execution, I find daily occasion to satisfy European visitors 
with the state of book-printing and book-binding in the city of Boston. 

" A book has been printed in Boston by E. G. House, 1824, con- 
taining an account of my happy visit to the United States, from 
August 15th to October 19th. I wish you may have the kindness to 
trace it up to the author, and express the pleasure and gratitude with 
which I have read it. Should he have completed the series of gratify- 
ing records, I beg you to send me the following parts. 

" I am at a great distance from you, dear friends, but my heart is 
constantly with you ; and among the numerous objects, presents, keep- 
sakes, by which I am surrounded, as a sort of continuation of my de- 
lightful American thirteen months, you need not I hope being told 
that the two beautiful drawings of my young friend hold a conspic- 
uous and peculiarly cherished place. 

" Since we are returning to those times of which I shall ever think 



424 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCTf. 

•with inexpressible delight, permit me to ask whether the measure we 
have recommended to the possessor of the first gun that was fired in 
the Revolution has been attended to, — to have a plate and inscrip- 
tion affixed to it, so that this precious relic of this first signal for the 
emancipation of the world be never mislaid. 

" It is needless to say I am deeply interested in reading the intelli- 
gence which through letters and newspapers come to me, three times 
a month, from the United States. It is to me a language better under- 
stood than European style. The city of Boston had a large share of 
oratory honors in the last session of Congress. To the jiaptJi's of this 
side the Atlantic, I refer you for British and Continental information. 
The discrepancy which to the credit of most European nations exists 
between governed and governors, is particularly remarkable with re- 
spect to the affairs of Greece. The situation of that interesting, spirited 
people, given up as they have been by every one of the pretended 
Christian powers, is far from being desperate. Assistance is much 
■wanted, but would be effectually applied. 

" With the most affectionate respects and good wishes to you, to 
Mrs. Quincy, to the whole family, daughters and sons, I am forever 
your devoted, grateful friend, 

" Lafayette. 

" George and Levasseur beg to be respectfully remembered. Re- 
member me also to our dear friends In the beloved city of Boston." 

The Same to the Same. 

" La Grange, November 13, 1827. 
" . . . . You will hear of the great event at Nacarino. How far the 
governments of France and England will have been pleased to hear 
that the joke has been carried so far by their naval representatives I 
don't pretend to determine, but they must join in our joy and our praises. 
The fact is, that the two gallant admirals, along with that of Russia, 
indignant at the breach of faith, and the horrors committed In the 
Morea by Ibrahim Pacha, and at the murder of the officers bearing the 
flag of truce, have utterly destroyed the fleets of Turkey and Egypt, 
and the vessels — sixty they say — which the Austrian government 
had lent as transports to assist in the destruction of their fellow-Chris- 
tians of Greece. Now the diplomatists will be busy in patching up the 
business, preventing wars, and stifling freedom in the best way thej 
can ; but heroic Greece is saved fi-om Imminent danger, and I have 
much confidence in the patriotism, talents, and dexterity of their 
worthy President, Capo DTstrIa 



LETTER FROM MR. ROSCOE. 425 

" Chambre DBS DepdtBs. 

•' The dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies by the French Min- 
istry can only be explained on account of their fears of a progressing 
public spirit, which might render their chance less advantageous in one 
or two years. That measure has been so calculated as to give the lib- 
eral electors no time to have previous meetings, to think of their can- 
didates, nor in many instances to return to their places of election, 
while everything had been previously underhand arranged to serve 
the views of government. I think, however, in the state of the pub- 
lic mind, that a good number of Deputes will be patriots, and a still 
greater number anti-ministerialists. It is, I believe, out of the power 
of the French government to prevent my being re-elected by the same 
district where I have been lately nominated, — the less so, as a part of 
those they had iniquitously excluded have since been able to recover 
their rights. 

" Remember me most respectfully and affectionately to Mrs. Quincy, 
to all the family, and to our particular friends in the beloved city of 
Boston, and believe me forever your affectionate, grateful friend, 

" Lafayette." 

At the time my father was engaged in his inquiries into the 
cause and cure of poverty, vice, and crime, he had had an occa- 
sional communication and exchange of publications with Mr. 
Roscoe, the historian of the Medici, who, it is well known, was 
gfeatly interested in those questions. When Mr. Quincy pub- 
lished the life of his father in 1825, he sent a presentation copy 
of the work to that excellent writer and benevolent man, as a 
mark of his respect and esteem. In return he received the 
following answer, which, besides the gratifying testimony it 
bears to the merits of the memoir, is interesting for the en- 
lightened humanity it breathes, that had already done so much 
towards mitigating the bloody code of English penal law 

Mr. Roscoe to Mr. Quincy. 

" ToxTETH Park, near Liverpool, July 10, 1826. 
" Sir : — From the time I received your obliging letter of the 28th 
April last, and perused the very interesting volume which accompanied 
it, of the life of your excellent father, it has been my constant inten- 
tion to express to you my sincerest thanks, as well for the pleasure and 
information you have afforded me, as for the honor you have done me. 



i26 UFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" It is witK real satisfaction I perceive that the lives of those distin- 
guished individuals wl>o signalized themselves as thfe founders of the 
liberties of your country have of latOs been brought forward in a man- 
ner worthy of their character ; and amongst these your memorial of 
your father will ever hold a distinguished rank. This is a monument 
which a son may indeed be proud to raise to a father, and which, in- 
stead of being confined to some solitary spot, extends his fame wher- 
ever there are heads to think and hearts to feel. I have lent your vol- 
ume to the small circle of my family and particular friends, and have 
been gratified in hearing it uniformly spoken of by them with the 
same sentiments of admiration and affection which I have so truly felt 
myself. 

" I have also to thank you for the two Tracts which you have had 
the goodness to transmit to me, and in which I am happy to perceive 
a striking coincidence of opinion with some of those which I have my- 
self ventured to avow, in my observations on penal jurisprudence. 

" Disappointed, as I confess myself to have been, in the effect of my 
publications, I find no disposition to relax in the slightest degree from 
the sentiments I have endeavored to establish, and which are in fact 
intended to demonstrate that criminal law, like every other human in- 
stitution, ought to have its foundation in benevolence, and not in re- 
sentment, cruelty, and revenge ; that, at all events, it is easy to restrain 
the wicked from crimes by imprisonment, and to make them provide 
for themselves by labor ; and that, whilst this is the case, there can be 
no pretext for the severities, punishments, and judicial murders which 
have hitherto been considered as essential to the safety of society and 
the repression of crime. 

" With the sincerest wishes for your health and happiness, and the 
most grateful acknowledgments for your kind communication, believe 
me most respectfully, dear sir, your very faithful and obedient servant, 

" W. RoscoE." 

In this chapter I have endeavored to relate, in as brief a man- 
ner as possible, the facts of Mr. Quincy's mayoralty, dwelling 
the longest on those which are likely to be most interesting to 
the general reader at this late day. The changes which he in- 
troduced were of great and permanent benefit to the city, and it 
is not too much to say that the citizens at this time, after the 
lapse of near forty years, are daily the better for his administra- 
tion. It may be safely affirmed that be was a model municipal 
magistrate. He gave his entire time and attention to the duties 



ADDRESS ON LEAVING THE MAYORALTY. 427 

of his office, and he left the city beautified, the police improved, 
the fire department reformed, and all things connected with the 
comfort and safety of the citizens in better condition than they 
had ever been before. He utterly refused to favor any of his 
personal friends in the matter of public improvements or con- 
tracts, and shunned so carefully even the appearance of self-seek- 
ing on his own account, that it was popularly said, " He stood so 
straight as to lean backward." His administration had been too 
upright and straightforward not to create many enemies, as well 
as many friends. He said from the beginning that no man could 
do his duty in such an office without being turned out of it. His 
own experience fulfilled his prediction. After being five times 
re-elected without jnfuch opposition, — once, at least, without any 
at all, — his official life came to an end at the election of 1828. 
In reforming the fire department he had created a very powerful 
political body, as well as a very useful practical one. To this 
body he gave offiince by refusing to appoint a person chief en- 
gineer, whom he did not regard as suitable for the place. An 
excited opposition was rallied against him by the partisans of the 
rejected candidate, which all the elements of hostility his conduct 
in office had excited helped to swell. After two trials, at each 
of which he had a large plurality, but lacked rather less than a 
hundred votes of an absolute majority, he withdrew his name, 
and peremptorily refused to allow it to be used again in the can- 
vass, and Mr. Harrison Gray Otis was elected his successor. 
Though he had foreseen that such must be the ending of his 
official career, he was far from insensible to the treatment he 
had received from his fellow-citizens in return for his indefatiga- 
ble and disinterested services, the rather that the contest had 
been conducted in a spirit of personal bitterness and malignity 
which he had deserved only by his resolute devotion to the inter- 
ests of the city. Accordingly, he summoned a meeting of both 
branches of the city government on the last day of his official 
service, and delivered an address, in which he recapitulated the 
doings of his term of service, showing the falsity of the various 
charges that had been urged against him, by the unanswerable 
arguments of facts and figures, as well as of logic. From its 



428 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

temporary and local character it will not be much known or read 
hereafter, but it is full of the eloquence of truth, reason, and an 
honorable sensibility. Its peroration will make a fitting conclu- 
sion of this chapter. 

" And now, gentlemen, standing as I do in this relation for the last 
time in your presence and that of my fellow-citizens, about to sur- 
render forever a station full of difficulty, of labor and temptation, in 
which I have been called to very arduous duties, affecting the rights, 
property, and at times the liberty of others ; concerning which the per- 
fect line of rectitude — though desired — was not always to be clearly 
discerned ; in which great interests have been placed within my con- 
trol, under circumstances in which it would have been easy to advance 
private ends and sinister projects ; — under these circumstances, I in- 
quire, as I have a right to inquire, — for in the recent contest insinu- 
ations have been cast against my integrity, — in this long management 
of your affiiirs, whatever errors have been committed, — and doubtless 
there have been many, — have you found in me anything selfish, any- 
thing personal, any thing mercenary ? In the simple language of an 
ancient seer, I say : ' Behold, here I am ; witness against me. Whom 
have I defrauded ? Whom have I oppressed ? At whose hands have 
I received any bribe ? ' 

" Six years ago, when I had the honor first to address the City Coun- 
cil, in anticipation of the event which has now occurred, the following 
expressions were used : ' In administering the police, in executing the 
laws, in protecting the rights and promoting the prosperity of the city, 
its first officer will be necessarily beset and assailed by individual in- 
terests, by rival projects, by personal influences, by party passions. 
The more firm and inflexible he is in maintaining the rights and in 
pm'suing the interests of the city, the greater is the probability of his 
becoming obnoxious to the censure of all whom he causes to be prose- 
cuted or punished, of all whose passions he thwarts, of all whose in- 
terests he opposes.' 

" The day and the event have come. I retire — as in that first ad- 
dress I told my fellow-citizens, ' If, in conformity with the experience 
of other republics, faithful exertions should be followed by loss of fa- 
vor and confidence,' I should retire — ' rejoicing, not, indeed, with a 
public and patriotic, but with a private and individual joy '; for I shall 
retire with a consciousness weighed against which all human suffrages 
are but as the hght dust of the balance." 



ELECTED PRESIDEMT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 429 



CHAPTER XVII. 

1828-1833. 

Mr. Quincy elected President of Harvard University. — The Presi- 
dent's House. — Removal to Cambridge. — Inauguration. — Letters 
OF Judge Story, Mr. Adams, Mr. Webster, General Lafayette, and 
Archbishop Cheverus. — Cambridge Society. — Changes in Disci- 
pline and Instruction. — Official and Private Intercourse with 
THE Students. — Philosophy of Prevention. — The Commons Hall 
— New Test of College Rank. — The Voluntary System. — The Law 
School. — Letter from Chief Justice Marshall. — Centennial Cel- 
ebration IN Boston. — President Quincy's Address. — Letter to 
Lafayette. — Description of Lagrange. — Death of. Lafayette. — 
Letter to his Son. — General Jackson's Doctorate. 

AT the time Mr. Quincy ceased to be Mayor of Boston, the 
Presidency of Harvard College was vacant by the resigna- 
tion of the Reverend Dr. John Thornton Kirkland. The claims 
of many eminent gentlemen to that important position were the 
matter of general discii.'^sion in society, and of grave considera- 
tion on the part of the academic functionaries on whom the re- 
sponsibility of selection rested. Mr. Quincy had never been 
regarded as a candidate for the office. The nature of the occu- 
pations of hi.s past public ViCn did not suggest his elevation to the 
headship of the oldest University in America, and, until just be- 
fore the election of December, 1828, his hold upon the mayoralty 
was regarded as sure and steadfast for as many years as he 
might choose to retain it. Immediately, however, after his re- 
fu.sal to be again a candidate for that office, his name began to 
be talked of in connection with the Presidency of the College. 
The best friends of the institution, and especially the Fellows, 
constituting the Corporation, from whom the nomination was 
originally to proceed, very soon were of one mind as to his 
peculiar fitness for the place at that particular time. The Corpo- 
ration then consisted of the Reverend Dr. Eliphalet Porter ; Mr. 



430 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Justice Charles Jackson, late of the Supreme Court of the State ; 
Mr. Justice Joseph Story, of the Supreme Court of the United 
States ; Nathaniel Bowditch, LL. D. and F. R. S., the author 
of the Navigator, and the translator of Laplace ; Mr. Francis 
Galley Gray ; and Mr. Ebenezer Francis, the Treasurer. On 
the 15th of January, 1829, the Corporation nominated Mr. 
Quincy unanimously as President of the University. He felt 
the honor deeply which the confidence of such men in his fitness 
for so novel and difficult a situation implied ; but he was unaf- 
fectedly doubtful on the point himself. On mature consideration, 
however, he thought he saw it to be his duty to accept the office, 
should the nomination be confirmed by the Board of Overseers. 
The confirmation was not as unanimous as the nomination had 
been. The clergy had been accustomed to regard the Presi- 
dency of the College as belonging, in a manner, to their body, 
from which, indeed, it had always been filled since its establish- 
ment, excepting in the case of President Leverett, more than a 
century before. This feeling, and also a little leaven of old par- 
tisan prejudice, prevented his receiving a unanimous vote in the 
Overseers. But the majority in his favor was a decided one, and 
on the 29th of January, 1829, his election was completed. 

The general community approved of the choice with great una- 
nimity, though there were some apprehensions that he might not 
be able readily to adapt himself to duties so diffijrent from those 
of his former life. But it was generally understood that the 
finances of the College had been in a state of great disorder. 
Dr. Kirkland, the model of a dignified clergyman, an accom- 
plished scholar, a polished gentleman, bland and courteous in his 
intercourse with the students, by whom he was greatly beloved, 
and universally popular in society for his genial graces, was not 
a man of business, and had no natural or acquired talent for the 
management of money. Judge John Davis, of the United States 
Distiict Court, who was Treasurer of the College during the 
whole of Dr. Kirkland's Presidency, unfortunately was not fitted 
to make good his deficiencies in this particular. A learned 
lawyer, and a man of great general erudition, he had rather the 
tastes and habits of a retired scholar, than those of a man of 



REMOVAL TO CAMBRIDGE. 431 

affairs. Between them both, without the sh'ghtest impeachment 
of their personal integrity, the College finances had fallen into 
almost inextricable confusion. Though the financial experience 
and skill of the Corporation, and especially of Dr. Bowditch and 
Mr. Francis, had already placed the funds on a safe basis, it was 
thought important that a man of the world, accustomed to busi- 
ness, should be placed at the head of the University. Mr. 
Qiiincy was very generally allowed to be the man to satisfy this 
necessity. 

The chief sacrifice which this change in the order of his life called 
upon my father and his family to make was that of the summers at 
Quincy. The duties of his office requiring his residence for the 
whole year at Cambridge, my mother did not think it worth her 
wliile to be encumbered with two establishments for the sake of 
the few weeks of vacation she could give to Quincy. For seven- 
teen summers, therefore, that beloved abode — occupied indeed 
by other members of the family — was no longer the home of 
my father's immediate household. The sacrifice, however, was 
cheerfully made, in view of the circumstances which demanded 
it. The President's house, which could claim the great Ameri- 
can antiquity of more than a hundred years, and had been the 
abode of eight of his predecessors, was fitted up for its new oc- 
cupant. The ceilings were low, as was the custom when it was 
built, but the rooms were large, and their arrangement not incom- 
modious, and, when suitably furnished, had a very comfortable, 
old-fashioned look, and for more than sixteen years were the 
scene of unbroken domestic happiness and of an abounding hos- 
pitality. To this new home the family removed towards the end 
of May, 1829, and on the 2d of June the inauguration took place. 

It was an event in which the neighboring city and the State 
generally felt a warm interest. In those days the connection 
between the city and the College was much closer than it is now. 
The growth of the one and the other seems rather to have sepa- 
rated them than to have drawn them nearer together. The vari- 
ous College festivals were objects of interest and conversation in 
Boston as they occui'red, to a degree now utterly unknown. Com- 
mencement was a legal holiday (it still is one at the banks and the 



432 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Custom-House), and its heroes and its deeds were at least one day's 
wonder. Rich and poor resorted to Cambridge on that day ; the 
roads between the towns were crowded with carriages, horsemen, 
and foot-passengers, and the streets of Cambridge all alive with 
strangers who liad come up to the anniversary. The inauguration 
of a President, being a ceremony of rarer occurrence, caused a 
yet greater excitement, and brought larger numbers together. It 
was nearly twenty years since the last one had taken place, and 
this circumstance, together with Mr, Quincy's prominence in 
Boston as a public man for so many years, made his inauguration 
an unusually attractive occasion. It was a very fine day, — the 
crowds without were great, and the attendance within the good 
old parish church — very ill replaced, as a scene for academic 
ceremonies by the newer one — was numerous and brilliant. It 
was the last inauguration, I believe, at which the addresses 
of the Governor and the President to each other and to the 
public, incident to the induction into office of the one by the 
other, were made in Latin, according to immemorial academic 
usage. At the inauguration of President Everett, and I think 
also at that of President Sparks, worthy Mr. Briggs was Gov- 
ernor, who did not possess among his many good qualities and 
gifts a knowledge of the Latin tongue. It must have been a 
cross to so excellent a scholar as Mr. Everett to miss this just 
opportunity of airing his Latinity, and to one so wisely regard- 
ful of good usages to be thus obliged to deviate from the ancient 
paths at his very entrance upon his office. And thus the custom 
fell into desuetude, and will probably never be revived. At 
Mr. Quincy's initiation, however, Governor Lincoln was fully 
competent to discharge properly his part in these introductory 
ceremonies, and they went off with great success. When the 
newly made President, wearing his academic robes of office, 
seated himself in the ancient chair from which the degrees have 
been given from time immemorial, and assumed the square cap, 
he was saluted by the cheers of the undergraduates and the ap- 
plause of the whole audience. His Inaugural Address in Eng- 
lish concluded the formal ceremonies of the day. A dinner 
followed, in the Commons Hall, given to all Masters of Arts, 



LETTERS FROil JUDGE STORY AND MR. ADAMS. 433 

and also to all the students, — which academic hospitality has 
been impracticable on later occasions by reason of the great mul- 
tiplication of the undergraduates. A reception was held by Mrs. 
Quincy in the evening, which was attended by all that was best 
in the society of Boston and Cambridge, and also by many 
strangers, graduates, and others, who had come up to grace this 
occasion. An illumination of the College buildings by the stu- 
dents made a brilliant conclusion to the welcome of the new 
President to his new home and his new duties. 

The following letters, touching his leaving the mayoralty and 
entering upon the presidency, belong to this place. 

Judge Story to Mr. Quincy. 

" Washington, January 14, 1829. 

" Dear Sir : — An hour ago I had the pleasure of receiving your 
farewell address. I have read it through carefully and deliberately. 
I sit down to thank you for It with my heart full of gratitude for your 
services. It is a most triumphant answer to all the calumnies against 
you, and is absolutely irresistible In Its statements. I admire It for Its 
masculine strength, Its severe truths. Its forcible — because plain — 
eloquence, and its moral dignity. The 7Hens sibi conscia recti is 
visible everywhere. 

" No man could regret more than myself your non-election. No 
man felt more confidence in your singleness of purpose, and firmness 
and public virtue. I cannot but lament what you so mildly denomi- 
nate a mere exercise of the power and right to change. If such no- 
ble experiments so begin and so end, where and what is our security 
for the future in the course of our free governments ? But I forbear. 
I ask you still to remember me as one who honored you in office, but 
who now feels that your title to his admiration and respect was but 
feebly understood, because It was never dependent upon office, and 
strengthens by the departure of Its forms and Its trappings. 

" I am, dear sir, with the truest regards, and I trust you will allow 
me the privilege of so subscribing myself, your most obliged friend, 

"Joseph Story." 

Mr. Adams to Mr. Quixcy. 

" City of Washington, January 15, 1829. 

" My dear Sir : — I have received the copy which you had the 
goodness to send me of your address on taking leave of the office of 

19 BB 



434 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Mayor. I have read it with deep interest, and take it not for flattery, 
if 1 say admiration. No event which has occurred for years had given 
me more sincere concern than the failure of your re-election. 

" Too long absent, and too far distant, to be conversant with the 
details of your administration, I was not competent to form a judg- 
ment concerning them ; but the impress of your mind and heart upon 
the condition of our beloved city was too deeply stamped for me to be 
insensible to it, and I regarded your removal from her service as a 
public calamity. Your address has proved that the parts are all con- 
genial to the whole, and that your improvements of the city are not 
only striking to the superficial eye, but In the interior solid, compact, 
and durable. 

" It must afford you constant gratification during the remainder 
of life, that the good you have done is permanent; that you have 
elevated to a liigher standard the character of the city itself. This 
praise is your own, and cannot be taken from you. If it is not under- 
stood now, it will be felt hereafter. 

" With my most fervent prayers for the prosperity of the city, I can 
wish her no better fortune than that your successors may have equal 
claims to the title of her benefactors with yourself 

" Accept the assurance of my unaltered and unalterable friendship. 

" John Quixcy Adams." 

Mr. Webster to Mr. Quincy. 

" Washington, January 25, ]829. 
" My dear Sir : — I have just closed the perusal of your address, 
and am not willing to lose a moment In expressing the pleasure, and, 
allow me to say, the pride with which I have read it. In my ojilnlon 
it Is in the highest degree just, manly, sensible, — full of proof of 
independence, conscious integrity, and proper self-respect. While you 
have done yourself no more than justice, you have made an exhibition 
of the measures of the city administration and of their effects which 
cannot fail to gi-atify your fi-Iends and all good citizens. Heaven 
punishes folly by granting it its desires ; and this penalty I Imagine 
they who were mainly active In producing this change will feel here- 
after, if they do not feel it now. Although I deeply regret that 
change, on public accounts, I yet think It clear that the events which 
prbduced It, the feeling which those events have excited, and the use 
which you have made already, and icliich I ti-ust you ivill still further 
make, of the occasion, will enable you to retire from the government 
of the city with more solid and brilliant reputation than almost any 



LETTERS FROM LAFAYETTE. 435 

other state of things which could be reasonably anticipated would 
have conferred. 

" I pray you to make my most friendly regards acceptable to Mrs. 
Quincy and your family, and to believe me, dear sir, with constant 
esteem, yo'ir obedient servant, 

" Daniel Webster." 

General Lafayette to Mr. Quincy. 

" Paris, January 27, 1829. 

" My dear Sir : — The session of the Chambers has opened to- 
day, and while I regret my country life, I find here a pleasing compen- 
sation in the enjoyment of an American society. 

" There has been lately in France not a presidential, but a minis- 
terial question, which has occasioned some excitement. M. de Polig- 
nac, the French Ambassador to England, having been called to Paris, 
by special order of the King, to occupy the department of foreign af- 
fairs, public opinion has repelled this representative of the counter- 
revolutionary party. So that it has been supposed M. de La Ferron- 
nays was better than everybody knows him to be, and matters have 
been patched up with temporary substitutes. The King's speech of 
this morning confirms the opinion that the French troops will not long 
be continued in Greece, and that the boundaries will not extend much 
farther than the Morea. A narrow syst^i, in my opinion, which is to 
'je attributed not to the more liberal dispositions of the French gov- 
ernment, but to the jealousy of England in everything that concerns a 
question of trade, or of liberty, out of their own island. 

" I hear the monument is going on finely. A drawing of Wash- 
ington's statue in the State-House has greatly pleased me. May the 
beloved city of Boston continue in every sort of prosperity and hap- 
piness. 

" Present my most affectionate regards to Mrs. Quincy, to your 
daughters and sons. Remember me to our friends. 

" Most truly and affectionately yours, 

" Lafayette." 

The Same to the Same. 

" Paris, February 26, 1829. 

. " My dear Sir : — We have just now received the account of 
your being elected President of the University, for which, as one of its 
oldest members,* and your affectionate friend, I find a double cause 

* Lafavette was made a Doctor of Laws at Cambridge in 1784. 



4B6 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

to rejoice. 1 have been highly gratified to welcome our Boston friends 
and the letters from you of Avhich they were the bearers. We are 
this winter happy in the society of a good number of American ladies 
and gentlemen, among whom I find a consolation for the otherwise 
very unpleasant obligation to be five or six months absent from La 
Grange. After having, forty years ago, contributed in France to a 
constitutional system 'whei-e the rights of man had been foirly acknowl- 
edged, and where many principles of the American school had re- 
ceived their execution, I have seen the result of our labors in a great 
measure overturned by the convulsions of anarchy, the combinations 
of imperial despotism, and the prejudices of a restoration, so that now, 
with the aid of public, peaceful opinion, and an honest but timid ma- 
jority in the Chamber of Deputies, we must by very slow steps recover 
some inadequate mites of what had been established on a broad basis, 
with almost universal assent. Yet some progress is made and will con- 
tinue to increase ; but quick-step, although old men have no time to 
wait, is not the march of the day. 

" I hope, my dear friend, you will have sent me the publication rela- 
tive to your mayoral magistracy. Be pleased to remember me very 
affectionately to Mrs. Quincy, to your daughters and sons, to Mr. Web- 
ster, and other friends in Boston and Cambridge. My son begs to be 
respectfully, cordially mentioned, and I am with all my heart your 

friend, ' 

" Lafayette." 

Archbishop Cheverus to Mr. Quincy. 

" Bordeaux, April 25, 1830. 

" Dear and honored Sir : — I have received with pleasure and 
gratitude your kind favor and your address on leaving the Mayor's 
office, but I have not had the happiness of seeing as yet the esteemed 
bearer of them. Dr. KIrkland. 

"The sentiments you express towards me In your letter I deeply 
feel and duly appreciate. It is no small honor and gratification to me 
to be remembered and esteemed by such a man as the Honorable Josiah 
Quincy. I have not forgotten his eloquence in Congress, his zeal and 
services as Mayor, and I see from afar his new and successful exertions 
as the chief of the University. I know him equal to any situation. 
There is none ever so high and arduous that he would not render both 
more beneficial to his country and more honorable. 

" I was delighted with your address. Along Avith the delightful con- 
sciousness of having well and nobly done, you have commanded the 



CHANGES IN DISCIPLINE AND INSTRUCTION. 437 

respect, the admiration, and the gi-atitude even of those who had not 
voted for you. 

" May Harvard long flourish under your direction and auspices ! 
May every blessing attend you here and hereafter ! 

" The bearer oi this, my beloved friend and pupil, the Rev. Mr. 
Byrne, may give you all the details of my present situation. It is at- 
tended w^th many difficulties and anxieties. I often regret my peace- 
able abode and ministry in dear Boston, and miss more than I can 
express the many esteemed friends I had there. 

" With high and affectionate respect, I remain, dear sir, ) our most 
obedient, humble servant, 

"fJoHN, Archbishop of Bordeaux." 

The new President and his family were welcomed to Cam- 
bridge with the most cordial kindness by the families of the Pro- 
fessors, and of the principal inhabitants of the town. The society 
of Cambridge was then, as it has always been, distinguished for 
its refinement and high cultivation. It was upon a simple and 
inexpensive footing, which made the showing of hospitality gen- 
eral and easy, and this was extended to the new-comers on every 
hand. Almost every evening of that pleasant summer was filled 
up with parties in their honor. Among othei'S, Mrs. Craigie, 
whose house had been the scene of the brief wooing of my 
father and mother more than thirty years before, appeared again 
in society, after a long seclusion, and filled her beautiful rooms 
with a brilliant assembly to meet her old friends and new neigh- 
bors. 

President Quincy, in the mean time, applied himself with his 
constitutional industry to the duties of his new office. With 
all due deliberation he made his observations on the state of 
tilings in the College, and considered how it could be best im- 
proved, and gradually introduced such changes in its discipline 
and instruction as his experience and knowledge of the world 
suggested. The doubts which some of the friends of the College 
had entertained, that he would lack the power of adapting himself 
to the government of young men, and their fears that he would be 
too se\erely strict in his dealings with them, were soon dissipated 
by the development of his plan of administration. It soon ap- 



438 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

peared that his fitness for his place was not limited by his experi- 
ence in busine>s matters, which had first suggested him as a fit 
man to fill it. This part of his duties, indeed, he discharged with 
eminent success. With the assistance of the other able men 
associated with him in tlie Corporation, he placed the finances 
of the College on a footing of perfect safety, and their condition 
when he left office was more flourishing than it had ever been 
before. But his heart's desire was to make the College a 
nursery of high-minded, high-principled, well-taught, well-con- 
ducted, well-bred gentlemen, fit to take their share, gracefully 
and honorably, in public and private life. His knowledge of the 
world, and long and close intercourse with men, had taught him 
how to approach and influence the sons, as well as the fathers. 
The pervading principle of his treatment of the undergraduates 
was to make them a law unto themselves, by the development of 
a sense of honor and self-resjDCCt, which should make severity of 
discipline unnecessary. He happily illustrated this philosophy 
of his in an aftei'-dinner speech at the inauguration, or the first 
Commencement, of his successor, Mr. Everett, by a quotation 
from Prior's " English Padlock." " I have always been guided, 
in my treatment of the undergraduates," said he, " by the rule 
laid down by ' famed Matt Prior ' for that of the ladies : — 

' Be to their faults a little blind ; 
, Be to their virtues very kind ; 

And clap your padlock on the mind ! ' " 

In his intercourse with them he always took it for granted that 
they were gentlemen and men of honor. He never questioned the 
truth of any story any of them told him, when in academic difficul- 
ties, however improbable it might be. That statement was accept- 
ed as the truth until it w'as overthrown by implacable facts and in- 
exorable evidence. Then, beyond doubt, the unhappy youth was 
made to know the value of a good character by the inconvenience 
attending the loss of it. Still, even in such cases, every kindly 
encouragement was extended to the offender to rehabilitate him- 
self in his own self-respect and the good opinion of his superiors. 
President Quincy took a truly fatherly interest in the young 
men, kept himself singulai-ly well informed as to their characters 



PHILOSOPHY OF PREVENTION. 439 

and conduct, and introduced an unprecedented freedom of per- 
sonal intercourse with them, without in the sHghtest degree com- 
promising his personal dignity, or weakening their respect for 
him. He had a strong sense of the importance to young men, at 
the forming period of life, of mingling in the society of ladies, 
and of their elders and superiors, as a part of education. In 
these views his wife fully concurred, and cheerfully lent her aid. 
For several winters after the removal to Cambridge, she opened 
her house every Thursday evening to the little world of Cam- 
bridge society, to which the larger world of Boston often con- 
tributed its contingent ; and to these receptions, or leifees, as they 
were termed, the students were freely invited, and freely came. 
After a few years these soirees were held only once a fortnight, 
instead of weekly ; and when at last they were discontinued, I 
believe there was but one feeling of regret on the part of all 
who frequented them, and they are still recalled, by those whose 
recollections run back so far, as among the pleasantest memories 
of their lives. And there can be no doubt as to the beneficial 
influence of these receptions, while they lasted, on the manners 
and morals of the young men. 

One of President Quincy's maxims of government was that 
discontents are much more easily prevented than cured, and his 
practice was in accordance with it. I will give two instances. 
At the time of his accession to office the ancient institution of the 
Commons Hall still existed. Though all the students were not 
required to sit at the board spread by the College, still a great 
proportion of them did so from mingled motives of convenience 
and economy. The table was provided by a contractor, who, 
though not the worst of his class, thought naturally more of his 
own profit than of the contentment of the hungry lads whose 
meat he was to provide in due season. In all time, since the 
memory of man, the Commons were the fertile source of discon- 
tent and disturbance. Almost every rebellion against the consti- 
tuted authorities had begun in the Commons Hall, and, it must 
be owned, if all tales be true, not always without palliation, or 
even justification. This occasion of offi^nce the new President re- 
moved merely by requiring the tables to be properly served, sim- 



440 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ply, but plentifully aud neatly, — a device which seems never to 
hare occurred to his predecessors. As the table service of the con- 
tractor was not such as the spirit of the age and the habits of the 
students when at home demanded, the President took this matter 
into his own hands, and ordered a set of china from Liverpool, 
with the College buildings, or some of them, on each piece, and 
replaced the dubious metal which did the duty of silver with 
genuine articles, each authenticated with the College arms. 
These changes removed all complaints, and I believe no breach 
of discipline began in the dining-hall after they were effected. 

This is one of the stories he used to tell on this point. One 
day the contractor came to him, and complained that the students 
would persist in toasting their bread at the stove, to the manifest 
detriment of the forks employed in that chemical experiment. 
He said it had always been a matter of complaint, but thnt no 
Faculty had yet been found equal to the emei-gency. " What 
did they do when you complained?" inquired tiie President. 
" Why, they would admonish the offender, and, in case of a repe- 
tition of the practice, they would suspend or dismiss him." '■ But 
that seems rather hard measui-e," expostulated the President. 
" Pray, do not you have your own bread toasted for breakfast in 
winter?" " Certainly I do," returned the contractor to this ar- 
gumentum ad hominem ; " but I cannot afford to toast the bread 
of all the College on my present terms." " Very good," the 
President replied ; " (oast the bread, and charge the additional 
expense in your bill ' " And so tlie great toast question was set- 
tled forever. 

Another cause of dissatisfaction among the students was the 
way in which their academic rank was determined, and the 
College honors distributed. There was no exact rule for the set- 
tlement of this matter, and rank and honors were given upon a 
kind of general average of merit, on which point there was often 
a difference of opinion between the Faculty and the students. 
Sometimes it was thought the former were influenced in their de- 
ci.-ions by the personal qualities of a candidate, which would ena- 
ble him to make a creditable appearance on a public day, to the 
injury of a painstaking fellow-student whose merits were not set 



NEW TEST OF COLLEGE BANK. 441 

off by equal advantages of manner or appearance. Whether or 
not there were any grounds for these suspicions of partiality, — • 
exercised not so much in favor of the person as of the College, 
as was generally admitted, — they did exist, and gave rise to 
that sense of injustice whicli is so hard for any of us, but espe- 
cially for the young, to bear. Mr. Quincy set himself to devise a 
remedy for this wrong, real or imaginary, and invented the sys- 
tem which has removed all possibility of complaint on this head, 
as far as complaint can be made impossible among human bei.igs, 
ever since. By this plan the merit of every College exercise is 
valued according to a scale of numbers, — say from one to eight, 
— by the professor or tutor, at the time of its performance. The 
sum of the whole, after deducting the amount of certain other 
numbers for small delinquencies, such as absences from lectures, 
or from chapel at daily prayers or on Sunday, make up the rank 
of each individual, — being the sum of his merits less that of 
his demerits. Mr. Quincy labored over this scheme most indus- 
triously at its inception, and, I think, actually kept the account 
himself until he had reduced it to a matter of mathematical cer- 
tainty. Upon this plan there can be no injustice done, excepting 
by the officer making the original record at the time of the per- 
formance of each exercise, which is a thing not to be supposed 
possible. So entirely has this matter of the relative rank of the 
students been made mathematically exact, that the highest posi- 
tion has once or twice been decided by a difference of one or 
two out of scores of thousands, and in one case, at least, there 
were two friendly rivals whose sums of merit were exactly equal. 
The question has lately been mooted as to the expediency of 
changing the existing system of instruction for one allowing a 
wider range of individual choice in studies, and substituting for 
the ascertaining of proficiency by the present plan of accurate 
detail a more general one by rigid examinations. That some 
alteration of this kind will be made in our academical arrange- 
ments is not improbable, considering that the average age at 
which students now enter college is more mature by several 
years than the average of forty years ago. But until this rev- 
olution is accomplished, the system of " marks " introduced by 
19* 



442 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Mr. Quincy more than thirty-five years ago will probably hold 
its own as the best possible under the existing arrangements. 

It is but just to President Quincy to say, that he endeavored 
to introduce a system of elective studies, by which the student's 
time could be more largely given to those departments of knowl- 
edge towards which he had a particular bent, or to which his 
parents or guardians wished his attention to be more particularly 
directed, than could be done on the old plan. No man could be 
more fixed in the faith that a competent knowledge of the ancient 
languages was the only sufficient foundation for a liberal educa- 
tion, in its proper signification, than President Quincy ; but he 
was not so bigoted in this belief as to insist upon it that all men, 
of all capacities and tastes, should be rigidly confined to one un- 
changeable curriculum of studies. He was strongly in favor of 
the adoption of the voluntary system, as far as it was compatible 
with the condition of the College, and the means of instruction it 
could command. And, in effect, the elective experiment was 
tried more thoroughly, and on a broader scale, in his time, than 
it has ever been since. In the words of his third successor, 
President Walker, in an admirable memoir of my father, pre- 
pared for the Collections of the Historical Society, " If it should 
still be objected that he did not do as much as was expected for 
academic reform, the answer is found in the fact, that he did 
more than the College has been able to retain. At the present 
moment, though a reaction is understood to be now going on in 
favor of the elective or proper university system, that principle is 
not carried out and applied to anything like the same extent as 
under President Quincy's administration." 

About the time Mr. Quincy entered upon the Presidency, 
Nathan Dane, illustrious for having drawn up the Northwestern 
Ordinance, by which slavery was forever excluded from the 
regions northwest of the river Ohio, founded the professorship 
of law which bears his name, and Judge Story was appointed 
the first Professor. That eminent jurist accordingly removed to 
Cambridge ; and the feeling of mutual respect and regard which 
before existed between him and Mr. Quincy ripened into a warm 
and intimate friendship. The reorganization of that important 



LETTER FROM CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. 443 

branch of the University was therefore strictly contemporaneous 
with Mr. Quincy's entrance upon office, and he was actively 
efficient in promoting its progress and interests. The next year 
Mr. Dane advanced a sum of money sufficient to authorize the 
Corporation to provide the building known as the Dane Law 
College. On the dedication of this building, in October, 1831, 
to the purposes of tlie School, Mr. Quincy delivered an address, 
which was published and widely distributed. The following 
letter from Chief Justice Marshall contains his testimony to the 
value of such a school as one of the departments of a university, 

" RlOHMOND, December 10, 1832. 

"Dear Sir: — I am much indebted to you for the renewed proof 
of your recollection given by sending me a copy of your address at 
the dedication of Dane Law College. You have added to my respect 
for that estimable gentleman, who has bestowed a large portion of the 
acquisition of a valuable life on an institution which promises to be so 
advantageous to the profession he had adopted. I had not supposed 
that law was so negligently studied in your country, whatever it may 
be in the South, as you represented. But, however this may be, 
you satisfy me entii-ely that it may be read with greatly increased 
benefit in an institution connected with your University. I can very 
readily believe that ' to disincorporate this particular science from 
general knowledge is one great impediment to its advancement.' The 
vast influence which the members of the profession exercise in all 
popular governments, especially in ours, is perceived by all; and 
whatever tends to their improvement benefits the nation. 

" I am, with great respect and esteem, your servant, 

"J. Marshall." 

Having thus briefly related the changes introduced by Presi- 
dent Quincy into the instruction and general discipline of the 
undergraduates during his terra of office, I will now return to the 
facts of his personal biography. The year after his removal 
from Boston to Cambridge, the second century from the first set- 
tlement of Boston was completed. It was thought proper by the 
city authorities, in compliance with the general wish of the citi- 
zens, to celebrate so interesting an anniversary by the usual 
commemorative services. President Quincy was selected as one 



V 



u^ 



444 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

eminently suitable to deliver the Adclress,"i)n view of his descent 
from one of the founders of the city, and of his long official con- 
nection with it. He performed this duty with great care, and 
his discourse is perhaps the most finished, in point of style, of all 
his smaller productions. The celebration was held on the 17th 
day of September, 1830, which was given up to the holiday 
pleasures of the occasion. The formal services took place in the 
Old South Church, and the Address was received with great ap- 
probation. / It traced the republican institutions of New Eng- 
land, as they now are, to their small beginnings, and sliowed the 
jealousy with which the founders of our secular and ecclesiastical 
polity guarded against the smallest infringement of civil and 
religious liberty. It atfirmed that the idea of absolute inde- 
pendence of the mother country was almost, if not quite, contem- 
poraneous with the emigration, and that the Revolution was but 
the complement of the scheme of the first generation of the Pil- 
grims. It explained the necessity, and a^serted the wisdom, 
of the ecclesiastical policy of the early settlers, and defended 
them against the railing accusations of inconsistent bigotry which 
yet form so large a part of the stock in trade of shallow and 
malignant enemies of New England. It showed that their 
course was one of plain self-defence and simple common-sense, 
and that to their successful assertion of it we owe that perfect 
toleration of all sects, and absolute freedom in matters of relig- 
ious faith and practice, which we now enjoy. These positions, 
political as well as ecclesiastical, were not permitted to pass un- 
challenged, and they were attacked both in this country and in 
England ; but President Quincy was content to leave his state- 
ments and arguments to their own weight, and declined any con- 
ti'oversy on the subject. As this Address has been long out of 
print, I will give a few passages of its peroration as specimens 
of its character, tone, and style. After a rapid but clear account 
of the political, moral, and religious condition of New England, 
he thus goes on : — 

"If, after this general survey of the surface of New England, we cast 
our eyes on its cities and great towns, with what wonder should we 
behold, did not famiharity render the phenomenon almost unnoticed, 



SECOND CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 445 

men, combined in great multitudes, possessing freedom and the con- 
sciousness of strength, — the comparative physical power of the ruler 
less than that of a cobweb across a lion's path, — yet orderly, obedient, 
and respectful to authority ; a people, but no populace ; every class 
in reality existing which the general law of society acknowledges, 
except one, — and this exception characterizing the whole country. 
The soil of New England is trodden by no slave. In our streets, in 
our assemblies, in the halls of election and legislation, men of every 
rank and condition meet, and unite or divide on other principles, and 
are actuated by other motives, than those growing out of such dis- 
tinctions. The fears and jealousies which in other countries separate 
classes of men, and make them hostile to each other, have here no in- 
fluence, or a very limited one. Each individual, of whatever condi- 
tion, has the consciousness of living under known laws, which secure 
equal rights, and guarantee to each whatever portion of the goods of 
lite, be it great or small, chance or talent or industry may have be- 
stowed. All perceive that the honors and rewards of society are open 
equally to the fair competition of all, — that the distinctions of wealth, 
or of power, are not fixed in families,' — that whatever of this nature 
exists to-day may be changed to-morrow, or, in a coming generation, 
be absolutely reversed. Common principles, interests, hopes, and af- 
fections are the result of universal education. Such are the conse- 
quences of the equality of rights, and of the provisions for the general 
diffusion of knowledge, and the distribution of intestate estates, estab- 
lished by the laws framed by the earliest emigrants to New England. 

" If from our cities we turn to survey the wide expanse of the in- 
terior, how do the effects of the institutions and example of our early 
ancestors appear, in all the local comfort and accommodation which 
mark the general condition of the whole country! — unobtrusive in- 
deed, but substantial ; in nothing splendid, but in everything sufficient 
and satisfactory. Indications of active talent and practical energy 
exist everywhere. With a soil comparatively little luxuriant, and in 
great proportion either rock, or hill, or sand, the skill and industry 
of man are seen triumphing over the obstacles of nature ; making the 
rock the guardian of the field : moulding the granite, as though it 
were clay ; leading cultivation to the hill-top, and spreading over the 
arid plain hitherto unknown and unanticipated harvests. The lofty 
mansion of the prosperous adjoins the lowly dwelling of the husband- 
man ; their respective inmates are in the daily interchange of civility, 
sympathy, and respect. Enterprise and skill, which once held chief 
affinity with the ocean or the sea-board, now begin to delight the 



448 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

interior, haunting our rivers, where the music of the waterfall, w:'^ 
powers more attractive than those of the fabled harp of Orphew 
collects around it intellectual man and material nature. Towns and 
cities, civilized and happy communities, rise, like exhalations, on rocka 
and iu forests, till the deep and far-sounding voice of the neighbor- 
ing torrent is itself lost and unheard, amid the predominating noise of 
successful and rejoicing labor. 

" What lessons has New England, in every period of her history, 
given to the world ! What lessons do her condition and example still 
give ! How unprecedented, yet how practical ! How simple, yet 
how powerful ! She has proved that all the variety of Christian sects 
may live together in harmony, under a government which allows 
equal privileges to all, exclusive pre-eminence to none. She has 
proved that ignorance among the multitude is not necessary to order, 
but that the surest basis of perfect order is the information of the 
people. She has proved the old maxim, that ' no government, except 
a despotism with a standing army, can subsist where the people have 
arms,' to be false. Ever since the first settlement of the country, arms 
have been required to be in the hands of the whole multitude of New 
England ; yet the use of them in a private quarrel, if it have ever 
happened, is so rare, that a late writer of great inteUigence, who had 
passed his whole life in New England, and possessed extensive means 
of information, declares, 'I know not a single instance of it.'* She 
has proved that a people of a character essentially military may subsist 
without duelling. New England has at all times been distinguished, 
both on the land and on the ocean, for a daring, fearless, and enter- 
prising spirit; yet the same writerf asserts that, during the whole 
period of her existence, her soil has been disgraced but by five duels, 
and that only tivo of these were fought by her native inhabitants ! 
Perhaps this assertion is not minutely correct. There can, however, 
be no question that it is sufficiently near the truth to justify the 
position for which it is here adduced, and which the history of New 
England, as well as the experience of her inhabitants, abundantly 
confirms, — that, in the present and in every past age, the spirit of our 
institutions has, to every important practical purpose, annihilated the 
spirit of duelling. 

" Such are the true glories of the institutions of our fathers ! Such 
the natural fruits of that patience in toil, that frugality of disposition, 

* See "Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy F wight, S.T.D. 
LL. D., late President of Yale College," Vol. IV. p. 334. 
t Ibid., p. 336. 



SECOND CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 447 

that temperance of habit, that general diffusion of knowledge, and 
that sense of religious responsibility, inculcated by the precepts, and 
exhibited in the example, of every generation of our ancestors ! 

" And now, standing at this hour on the dividing line which sepa- 
rates the ages that are past from those which are to come, how solemn 
is the thought, that not one of this vast assembly — not one of that 
great multitude who now throng our streets, rejoice in our fields, and 
make our hills echo with their gratulations ^ — shall live to witness the 
next return of the era we this day celebrate ! The dark veil of futu- 
rity conceals from human sight the fate of cities and nations, as well 
as of individuals. Man passes away; generations are but shadows; — 
there is nothing stable but truth ; principles only are immortal. 

" What, then, in conclusion of this great topic, are the elements of 
the liberty, prosperity, and safety which the inhabitants of New Eng- 
land at this day enjoy ? In what language, and concerning what 
comprehensive truths, does the wisdom of former times address the 
inexperience of the future ? 

" Those elements are simple, obvious, and familiar. 

"Every civil and religious blessing of New England — all that here 
gives happiness to human life, or security to human virtue — is alone 
to be perpetuated in the forms and under the auspices of a free com- 
monwealth. 

" The commonwealth itself has no other strength or hope than the 
intelligence and virtue of the individuals that compose it. 

" For the intelligence and virtue of individuals there is no other 
human assurance than laws providing for the education of the whole 
people. 

" These laws themselves have no strength, or efficient sanction, ex- 
cept in the moral and accountable nature of man disclosed in the 
records of the Christian's faith ; the right to read, to construe, and to 
judge concerning which belongs to no class or caste of men, but ex- 
clusively to the individual, who must stand or fall by his own acts and 
his own faith, and not by those of another. 

" The great comprehensive truths, written in letters of living light 
on every page of our history, — tiie language addressed by every past 
age of New England to all future ages, is this : Human happiness has 
no perfect security hut freedom ; freedom, none hut inrtue; virtue, none 
but knowledge ; and neither freedom, nor virtue, nor Jcnotvledge has any 
vigor, or immortal hope, except in the principles of the Christian faith, 
and in the sanctions of the Christian religion. 

" Men of Massachusetts ! citizens of Boston ! descendants of the 



448 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

early emigrants ! consider your blessings ; consider your duties. You 
have an inlieritance acquired by the labors and sufferings of six suc- 
cessive generations of ancestors. They founded the fabric of your 
prosperity in a severe and masculine morality, having intelligence 
for its cement, and religion for its groundwork. Continue to build on 
the same foundation, and by the same principles ; let the extending 
temple of your country's freedom rise, in the spirit of ancient times, in 
proportions of intellectual and moral architecture, — just, simple, and 
sublime. As from the first to this day, let New England continue to 
be an example to the world of the blessings of a free government, and 
of the means and capacity of man to maintain it. And in all times to 
come, as in all times past, may Boston be among the foremost and 
the boldest to exemplify and uphold whatever constitutes the pros- 
perity, the happiness, and the glory of New England." 

The correspondence between ray fiither and Lafayette was 
kept up as long as the latter lived, one letter a year at least 
being exchanged by them. The winter after the Revolution of 
July, 1830, my father addressed the following letter to Lafayette, 
which contains its own excuse for the delay of his congratulations 
on the successful issue of the Three Days. 

Mr. Quincy to General Lafayette. 

" Cambridge, January 30, 1831. 
" Dear Sir : — Permit me to join the voice of ray country, as of 
the truly great and good of every land, and express my congratula- 
tions for the unexampled success of the events which have recently 
distinguished France, and my admiration of the part you have acted 
in them. I should have done so earlier, but I knew the multitude of 
communications of this kind with which you must be oppressed, and I 
was willing to postpone my gratification, out of respect to your con- 
veiiience and the better rights of others. I need not tell you of the 
intense anxiety which has been felt by your friends on this side the 
Atlantic, when they perceived you were putting to risk the fame you 
had acquired through the sacrifice and suffering of a long life, and 
placing your great name again in the front ranks of a revolution as 
critical, perhaps, as any the world has ever witnessed. The recollec- 
tion of the scenes which succeeded the events of 1789 added strength 
to their fears. It was not realized that the lapse and lessons of forty 
years had materially changed the character of the French people. 



LETTER TO LAFAYETTE. 449 

Like convulsions — a reign of anarchy, succeeded by a reign of des- 
potism — were anticipated. Hyw wonderfully, how joyfully, have 
their anticipations been proved groundless ! With what pride do your 
fi-iends perceive the prudence as well as the predominance of your 
genius. A revolution in the great capital of France, effected without 
other bloodshed than that which flowed in the firet and inevitable 
combat. A new dynasty established, united by Its relations with the 
ancient prejudices of the people, yet severed, by the character of the 
immediate sovereign and his family, from all that excited fears in the 
friends of a well-regulated fieedom. That this revolution has been as 
yet bloodless, except in battle, is attributed here to the mild influences 
t)f your character. May your designs and desires relative to this 
eventful topic be accomplished. May those influences of your virtues 
which are seen and acknowledged in whatever there has been of hope 
and honor in this revolution be continued. May you forever attach 
to your memory what your sacrifices and labors so well deserve, — the 
name of father of two nations, and the hero of both worlds. You 
well know, sir, this is not the language of compliment, nor yet of an 
individual. It is that of the whole American people. It is, or will 
soon be, that of all France, of Europe, and the world. In the ele- 
vated and yet critical situation in which you stand, your American 
friends see nothing but new opportunities for putting to proof and for 
giving occasion of success to those virtues and influences which have 
already been instrumental of good to America, and to France. They 
are yet solicitous to be assured that the mild and humane principles 
which have so uniformly characterized your life continue to sway 
those around you, and that the throne of Louis Philippe shall have its 
foundations laid sure on the principles of mercy. Pardon, sir, these 
expressions of respect and honor, which the personal affections my 
acquaintance with you implanted in my bosom have compelled. 

" You did me the honor in your last letter to me to request that 1 
would transmit to you a small publication of mine, on declining the 
re-election to the Mayor's office of Boston. With this request I com- 
plied, and accompanied the pamphlet with a letter by Dr. Kirkland. 
I mention this fact lest I should seem insensible of the honor conferred 
on me by your request, as I have reason to apprehend that the pam- 
phlet and letter never reached your hand. Encouraged by your former 
expressions of interest, I now transmit an address delivered by me at 
the request of the city authorities of Boston, in September last, on the 
second centennial anniversary of the settlement of that city. Should 
you find a few moments for its perusal, I think you will perceive the 

cc 



450 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

character of our ancestors in New England placed in a truer light 
than that in which it had been accustomed to be viewed, and those 
features of their character usually deemed most objectionable soft- 
ened, if not vindicated. 

" I am, sir, with great respect, your friend and obedient servant, 

"JosiAH QutNCY." 

In the autumn of 1833, the year before the death of Lafayette, 
my sister Margaret visited Europe with her husband, the late 
Mr. B. D. Greene, and when in France paid a visit to La 
Grange, of which she wrote a description to my father. I am 
sure my readers will pardon me for varj'ing the monotony of my 
narrative by the insertion of this charming episode. 

LA GRANGE. 

Extract from a letter addressed to President Quincy by Ms daughter 
Mrs. B. D. Greene. 

" We intended to defer presenting your letter of introduction to 
General Lafixyette until our return from Italy. The General, hear- 
ing through a friend that your daughter was in Paris, came in person 
to see us, accompanied by his son George Washington and two ladies 
of his family. At his urgent request, Ave passed the first night at ' La 
Grange,' on our way to Italy, quitting Paris on the 8th of December, 
1833. 

" We arrived at four o'clock, and, having sent Fran9ois forward to 
announce us, found the gates open, and servants ready to receive us. 
The hall of entrance is ornamented by flags, and the stone staircase 
lined by jars of flowers. Upon the landing-place we were most cor- 
dially welcomed by Madame Lasteyrie, the daughter of Lafayette, and 
one of his granddaughters. They conducted us through a large 
apartment to the salon, where a bright wood-fire presented a most 
cheerful aspect in the dark autumnal evening. Lafaj'ette now en- 
tered, received us in the kindest manner, and presented us to the 
ladies as ' representatives of very dear friends.' He then accompa- 
nied Mr. Greene to his apartment, while the young lady attended me 
to mine; in both were fires burning and servants in waiting. At 
six returned to the salon, where the family then at the chateau were 
presented to us by Lafayette. They considered their number reduced 
almost to solitude ; but twelve persons sat down at dinner, besides our- 
selves. I was conducted by Lafayette to the fine old salle a manger 



DESCRIPTION OF LA GRANGE. 451 

(a stone hall wi(h groined roof), placed at his right hand, and was the 
recipient of all kind attentions. The dinner passed very agreeably, 
and, on adjourning to the salon, we found assembled the great-grand- 
children of Lafayette then at the chateau, pretty specimens of French 
children, of various ages. 

" Upon the centre-table were the water-colored drawings of the 
Adams and Hancock Houses, painted by Susan. Lafayette read 
aloud the inscriptions, spoke of her kindness in presenting them to 
him, and the value they possessed. 

" The ladies expressed their interest in the drawings, and had much 
to say concerning the General's visit to Boston and Quincy. Coffee 
was served at ten, tea at half past eleven, and, after an animated and 
agreeable evening, the company retired. 

" At ten the next morning we joined the ladies and some of the 
gentlemen in the salon, and at eleven Lafayette, preceded by his 
beautiful little dog, entered ; all the company rising at his entrance, — 
a mark of respect paid whenever he entered or left the apartment. He 
gave Mr. Greene several letters of introduction to various dignitaries 
in Italy, and, after speaking in high terms of the Princess Charlotte 
Napoleon,* presented me with a letter addressed to her in Florence, 
requesting me particularly to make her acquaintance, as he was cer- 
tain it would prove a mutual pleasure. Then, taking my hand and 
saying, ' Come, dear friend,' he led me down stairs to breakfast, a la 
fourchette, — beginning with soup and ending with coffee. In the 
room adjoining the salon are portraits of the Presidents of the United 
States ; the books presented by you to Lafayette were upon a table, 
round which the family were accustomed to assemble to read the let- 
ters and newspapers, giving accounts of Lafayette's reception and pro- 
gress in America. 

" The American flag draped one side of this apartment. Flags pos- 
sessing different histories adorn many of the walls of the chateau. 
Among them that of the ' Brandy wine,' — the frigate placed by the 
government of the United States at the disposal of Lafayette, upon 
his return to France. Upon his arrival this flag was presented, at hia 
request, as a souvenir of the voyage, and of his friendship with the 
officers. 

"We were then invited to visit the library, Lafayette's bedroom, 
dressing-room, and other apartments. In these are collections of va- 
rious presents of every description and value, given to Lafayette dur- 
ing liis last visit to the United States. The dressing-room is hung 

* The daughter of Joseph Bonaparte. 



452 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

■with portraits, prints, and pictures ; — among tliese are the drawings 
by Susan which were shown to us last evening. 

" The library is a charming room. Lafayette requested me to ob- 
serve his desk, which was placed at a window commanding a view of 
the farm, etc. 

" We were shown a variety of gifts and relics, each possessing some 
interesting story, told by Lafayette in his endearing manner. A 
short walk round the grounds followed. The chateau has been in 
Madame Lafayette's famih for six hundred years. Fisher's pictures 
of it are excellent. 

" At four our carriage was announced, and the ladies, with Lafay- 
ette, accompanied us to the door of the hall, offering good wishes and 
affectionate farewells. Lafayette tenderly embraced me, thanked us 
for visiting him at so late a season, and, waving his hand, exclaimed, 
' Adieu, dear friends,' as we were driven away. We consider it a 
great privilege to have seen him at La Grange, surrounded by his 
family. He seemed in good health, but was constantly attended by 
a servant, who assisted him in rising. A favorite dog, — a chien- 
loup, — white as snow, never quitted him, and received from him a 
lump of sugar at meals. 

" The unceasing affection and respect shown to Lafayette by all 
around him was very striking to an American. 

" The visit in all its details will remain a most interesting and unique 
episode in my experience." 

During the absence of my sister and her husband in Europe, 
Lafayette died, in 1834. After their return home my father ad- 
dressed the following letter to M. George Washington Lafayette, 
vrhich will fitly conclude that interesting passage of his life. 

To G. W. Lafayette. 

" Cambridge, January 24, 1835. 

" Dear Sir : — The return of my son-in-law and daughter (Mr. and 
Mrs. Greene) from Europe, and their interesting recollections of their 
visit to La Grange, call upon me to express, both in their behalf and 
my own, the gratitude we have felt for all the kindness thus experi- 
enced from your lamented father and the ladies of his family. 

" How pleasing would it have been to us had we been permitted to 
have made this expression of our feelings to that father ! A father, — ■ 
so loved, so honored, and now so mourned, — beyond the lot of any 
other being of our race ! For where in all history is there a name 



GENERAL JACKSON'S DOCTORATE. 453 

concentrating on itself such a universal and overflowing honor and 
affection as Lafayette ? 

" It was not, however, my purpose to touch a theme on which the 
eloquence of the New World, as well as that of the Old, has been already 
employed and exhausted. My object in this letter was wholly of an 
individual and personal character. The gratification my whole family 
received by the kind reception given to those two beloved members by 
your father and his family claimed from me a distinct expression of 
gratitude. 

" To you, sir, as his son and representative, I cannot deny myself this 
privilege of uttering feelings which I am not permitted to expi-ess to 
him. Be assured, sir, that the hours passed at La Grange by those 
highly favored children of mine were to them the happiest and most 
cherished in recollection of all those spent intheir tour in Europe, — 
although in every other respect most happy. 

" Accept, sir, these expressions of our feelings, and with them the 
best wishes for your happiness, and for that of all that may be dear to 
you, from your obliged friend and servant, 

"JOSIAH QUINCY." 

In the summer of 1833 General Jackson, then just entering 
on his second administration, made his tour through the North- 
ern States. He was everywhere received with the respect due 
to the head of the nation. And his recent dealings with South 
Carolina and Nullification had in some measure qualified, even 
in Massachusetts, the fieelings of dislike and distrust which his 
election and his earlier administration had created at the North, 
and especially in New England. No President, not even Wash- 
ington himself, had a more splendid welcome to Boston than 
General Jackson. At the time of the visit of President Monroe 
in 1817, it had been thought due to his high station tiiat the 
University should confer upon him her highest degree. In the 
light of this precedent my father considered it the duty of the 
authorities of the Univeisity to do the same honor to President 
Jackson. The Corporation were of the same opinion, as were 
such of the Overseers as could be got together at an informal 
meeting. President Jackson was evidently much gratified at the 
compliment, and expressed his sense of the proffered honor in 
suitable terms. A special academic session was had in the 



454 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

chapel of the University on the 26th of June. Tiie chapel was 
entirely filled with the members of tiie Corporation anil Overseers, 
the Faculty, the students, and the general public. When the 
procession entered, the whole audience rose and remained stand- 
ing until the two Presidents had taken their seats on the plat- 
form in front of the pulpit. The General submitted graciously 
to the Latin, bowed generally in the proper places, and received 
his parchment in eloquent silence, which was broken by gen- 
eral applause. After his reception among the sons of Harvard, 
he held a levee at tlie President's house, which was attended 
largely by the members of the University and the inhabitants of 
the town. Notiiing could be more soldierly and gentlemanlike 
than the bearing, and maimers of General Jackson, when he was 
upon his good behavior; and much of the prejudice which had 
raged against him, and which soon revived with the war he de- 
clared against the United States Bank, disappeared before the 
charm of his personal presence. This academic action was made 
the occasion of much ridicule and of many virulent attacks upon 
my father. Party spirit, which had slept for a moment, soon 
awoke again, and the same outside influences which the next 
year fostered the intestine disturbances of the College seized on 
this occasion to cast odium upon him. At the next regular 
meeting of the Overseers, whose consent was necessary to con- 
firm the degree, but which could not be had in proper form for 
want of time at the moment, there was an attempt to invalidate 
the transaction, or at least to censure it. But precedent, com- 
mon sense, and the custom of learned bodies in the Old World 
overbore the attempt, and General Jackson lived and died a 
Doctor of liaws, entitled to all the privileges and pre-eminences 
thereunto appertaining. 



SIR AUGUSTUS FOSTER. 455 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

1833-1845. 

Sir Augustus Foster. — Correspondence with President Quinoy. — 
College Disturbances in 1834. — Celebration of 1836. — Dangerous 
Situation of the Library. — Gore Hall built. — Growth of the 
Observatory. — Built and equipped mainly by President Quincy's 
Efforts. — Profitable Purchases of Lands. — History of Harvard 
College. — Letter from Chancellor Kent. — From James Gkahame, 
THE Historian. — Correspondence and Friendship with him. — Me- 
moir OP Grahame. — Republication of his History of the United 
States. — Dealings with Mr. Bancroft. — Phesident Quincy resigns 
his Office. — Reasons for his Resignation. — Results of his Ad- 
ministration. — Testimony of President Walker. — His Last Com- 
mencement. — Takes Leave of Cambridge. — Returns to Boston. 

DURING my father's life at Washington he had made the 
acquaintance of Mr. Augustus John Foster, who was there 
lirst as Attache and Secretary of the British Legation, and after- 
wards as Minister. After serving his time as Secretary of Le- 
gation in this country, he was promoted to be Charge d' Affaires 
at tlie Court of Stockholm, whence he was transferred, after the 
removal of Mr. Jackson, to Washington, in 1811. He was an 
agreeable and accomplished young man, and a friendly inter- 
course existed between himself and my father during their com- 
mon residence at Washington, and he paid one or two visits to 
Quincy when they were both off duty at the capital. Naturally 
enough, their common detestation of Bonaparte, and dread of the 
universal empire of the French, drew Mr. Foster and the Fed- 
eral members of Congress together, of whom, as will be seen 
presently, he always retained a kindly remembrance. He was 
a gentleman of good descent, being the son of Mr. John Thomas 
Foster of Dunleer, County Louth, and Lady Elizabeth Hervey, 
daughter of the eccentric fourth Earl of Bristol and Bishop of 
Derry, and granddaughter of Pope's " Lord Fanny " and Molly 
Lepel. After the death of Mr. Foster, Lady Elizabeth married, 



456 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ia 1809, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, thus succeeding the cele- 
brated Duchess Georgiaiia, famous in the last century for her 
beauty and Whig zeal, and historical for the part she took in be- 
half of Mr. Fox in the great Westminster election of 1784. Mr. 
Foster was British Minister at Washington at the time the war 
of 1812 was declared, and did all in his power to prevent it. 
Receiving tlie news of the repeal of the Orders in Council at 
Halifax, on his way liome, he prevailed on the Admiral in com- 
mand on the North American Station to suspend proceedings 
against captured American vessels, in the hope that the removal 
of that one great pretext for hostilities might lead to a pacifica- 
tion. In the same spirit he induced Sir George P revolt, who 
commanded the land forces, to propose to General Deai horn an 
armistice until the action of the American government in this 
new state of things could be known. General Dearborn agreed 
to this proposition ; but the things that made for peace found no 
lavor in the eyes of the war party at Washington. Tlie Cabinet 
refused to ratify the armistice, or to consent to a mutual suspen- 
sion of proceedings in the prize courts, and the war went for- 
ward on the one issue of impressment, with what success we have 
already seen. Mr. Foster subsequently was Minister to Den- 
mark and to Sardinia, was made a Privy Councillor, a Knight 
Grand Cross of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, and, in 1831, a 
Baronet. 

After more than twenty years' separation Sir Augustus Foster 
renewed his acquaintance with ray fatlier by the following cordial 
letter, which led to an occasional correspondence. 

Sir Augustus Foster to President Quincy. 

" ToRiN, September 30, 1833. 
" My dear Sir : — I should hardly venture to recall myself to your 
recollection, if I had not learnt from Dr. Bigelow, whom 1 accidentally 
met on board the steamboat of the Rhone, that you were very well, 
and comfortably estatablished in your native State, and at the head, 
if I mistook not, of the University. I am sorry that neither you, nor 
any other of my Washington friends, ever give any letter for me to 
your countrymen who come to travel in Europe. I should at all times 
be happy to see them, if their hurry to go South would allow them to 



CORRESrOXDEXCE WITH SIR AUGUSTUS FOSTER. 457 

stop a day or two at Turin. I was in hopes Dr. Bigelow would have 
made us a visit on his return froni Naples ; but I conclude he did not 
pass this way. I am busily engaged in putting my notes together 
which I collected during my double residence in the United States, 
with a view to getting them in order for printing some years hence, 
and, as I have set down naught in malice, but, on the contrary, found 
much to praise, I trust you will not be dissatisfied with the book. 

" You have had enough of nonsense from Mrs. Trollope and other 
silly people, who saw nothing birt the dark side, and who did not 
deserve such kind treatment as they met with, being merely land- 
jobbers or book-jobbers, instead of travellers for information. 

" You would much oblige me if you could get me any short account 
of the mode in which schools are conducted, and tutors educated for 
the purpose, in Connecticut or Massachusetts, where the system seemed 
to be excellent, and also if you could procure for me the memoirs of 
your uncle,* the immediate successor of Washington, which I re- 
member appeared piecemeal in a Boston paper, but which I was never 
able to get in an entire state. 

" I scarcely venture, after such a separation, to inquire after your 

family I have been man-ied since the year 181 5, f and have three 

boys, the eldest of whom, now seventeen years old, I sent this year to 
'Edinburgh to be prepared for the University of Cambridge. The sec- 
ond is destined for the Church, and the third for the law. If any of 
yours ever travel this way, don't fail to recommend them to call on me. 

" 1 was in correspondence with poor Randolph not many months 
before he died. Did you not smile at his punctiliousness about pro- 
nunciation in his dying moments, when the doctor would so obstinately 
say omnipotent ? 

" I suppose there are but few in Congress now of our old New Eng- 
land friends, whom we remember in the wide waste of the Federal 
city. I should like to know if Pitkin is still flourishing? And Hunter 
of Rhode Island ? But I am come to the end of my paper. Begging 
you to receive my best wishes for the continued prosperity of yourself 
and family. I am, my dear sir, very truly yours, 

" Aug. J. Foster." 

* It is unnecessary to say that Sir Augustus was mistaken as to this relation- 
ship. The middle name of President John Quincy Adams has often led strangers 
to infer a nearer blood relationship than actually exists between the two families. 

t Sir Augustus Foster married Lady Albinia Jane Hobart, sister of the fifth 
Earl of Buckinghamshire, and a descendant of John Hampden. Lady Albinia 
Foster, I believe, still sm-vives. 
20 



458 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY, 

President Qulncy to Sir Augustus Foster. 

" Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 7, 1834. 

" My dear Sir : — I have had the great pleasure of receiving your 
letter of the 30th of September, and should have replied earlier had 
not public and ofhcial duties prevented my reciprocating your kind 
expressions of recollection. Availing myself of your permission, I 
have transmitted a letter of introduction to you to my son-in-law, 
B. D. Greene, Esq., who, with my daughter, is now in Italy. He is a 
man of science, and chiefly devoted to the pursuits of natural history. 
On the death of his father, whose widow is a sister of Lord Lynd- 
hurst, he has entered a second time on a tour of Europe. 

" Your proposed work on the United States I doubt not will be 
characterized by candor and correctness, and be a valuable addition 
to the mass of knowledge concerning a period of American history 
not without its interest and its lesson. I say nothing concerning the 
already perished travels of the TroUopes, the Fiddlers, the Halls, and 
the Hamiltons, since you entertain so just an opinion of them. These 
birds of passage have skimmed over this country like vultures over the 
surface of the Carolinas, pouncing upon whatever is corrupt, and pass- 
ing by whatever is sound or healthful, as adapted neither to their 
taste nor scent. 

"The American Almanac for 1831, which I send, contains a concen- 
trated account of the schools in the United States. Satisfactory infor- 
mation on the same topic can be found in Rich's View of the United 
States, published in London, 1833. I know of no memoir of the late 
President John Adams ; the publication to which you allude, and 
which appeared in the form of a pamphlet, is now out of print. I also 
send you Dwight's History of the Hartford Convention. 

" There must be at Turin resources of which you perhaps are not 
aware, relative to this country, In the extensive and valuable collec- 
tions of books and pamphlets made by Count Vidua, son of a prime 
minister of the King of Sardinia, which I understood were transmitted 
to Italy some ten years ago. At the time I Avas Mayor of Boston he 
brought letters of special introduction to me, and I aided him in his 
researches. He was possessed with an insatiable thirst for visiting 
foreign countries, and died somewhere in the East Indies. 

" It gives me great pleasure to hear of the happy prospects of your 
family, and, in reply to your kind inquiries after mine, I have the hap- 
piness to state that my wife is still preserved to me. We have two 
sons and five daughters, and are descending into the vale of life with 
as many causes of gratitude as belong to human lot. 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH SIR AUGUSTUS FOSTER. 459 

" At the solicitation of tlie Corporation of Harvard University I 
accepted some years since the presidency of that seminary, and now 
reside at Cambridge. It is an office of superintendence, and not of 
instruction. My social relations are extremely pleasant, — not the 
less so by their having withdrawn me fi-om any direct connection 
with the politics of the country. As I advance in life, the selfishness 
and virulence which distinguish them have become disgusting to me. 

" Death has indeed made sad havoc among the ranks of those who 
enjoyed your acquaintance at Washington. Pitkin still lives, and oc- 
cupies himself with the statistics and history of his country ; Dana, 
Hillhouse, and Pickering are gathered to their fathers. Poor Ran- 
dolph ! America could well have spared a better man. In a highly 
civilized state of society, and possessing a cultivated intellect, he had 
the temper and spii-it of his savage ancestress, Pocahontas. His toma- 
hawk was continually in his hand, and his scalping-knife ever hung at 
his side. His warfare was never of the regular, but always of the par- 
tisan character. Enemies he could not destroy he never failed to 
cripple. Those he could not conquer, he was apt to leave skinned 
alive. Before his death his eccentricities had become so great that he 
was thought by many to be deranged. But peace to his ashes. Hun- 
ter is, I am told, alive, but forgotten. 

" Five-and-twenty years have produced an almost total change in 
the relations of society. Those whom you knew in active life are 
either gone or grown old. A race of politicians have succeeded, formed 
in a school more consonant to the changeful humor of the times than 
that in which their predecessors had been educated. They steer the 
ship of state by the winds of popular favor, before which they run, 
which they never seek to stem, which they dare not resist. So long 
as the tempestuous sea of liberty has sea-room for such sailing, the nav- 
igators who hold the helm will be such as they now are. To my eye, 
however, she is in the midst of breakers, which if she escape it will be 
by good luck and not by seamanship. The relations of this countiy 
are vast and unparalleled, and results are constantly occurring which 
seem to set at defiance both sound reason and experience. Your own 
country also seems to me well inclined to enter on the career of rev- 
olution, for I cannot see anything less in the (measures*) of reform 
which seem to be contemplated. All I can say is, 

' Tu, nisi ventis 
Debes ludibrium, cave ! * 

* Word illegible in the press-copy. 



460 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" It will always give me pleasure to liear from you. Whatever local 
publication you may wish to obtain, you may always command by giv- 
ing me notice of it 

" With every wish for your happiness and for that of your family. I 
am, my dear sir, very truly yours, 

"JOSIAH QuiNCY." 

Sir Augustus Foster to President Quincy. 

"TuRis, July 12, 1834. 

" My dear Sir : — I have been in hopes to see your daughter and 
son-in-law for some weeks. The weather being so hot, I made sure of 
their coming northward, but I now begin to despair of it, and have 
written to our Minister at Florence to inquire after tliem, having heard 
from Mr. Temple Bowdoin, whom I accidentally met in the street, that 
they were there. 

" I am much obliged to you for your friendly reply, and for the books 
which you were so good as to send me, particularly the History of the 
Hartford Convention. That is, of course, very interesting to me. 

." The Italian gentleman (M. Vidua) whom you knew at Boston 
died, I am sorry to say, three or four years ago, in one of the Dutch or 
Philippine Islands, of the effects of an injury he received from slip- 
ping his leg into some hot sulphur while examining a solfatara. He 
was a great traveller, and two of his countrymen are putting his notes 
in order ; but I am sorry to say, that those relating to the United 
States are believed to have been burnt, as he had deposited them with 
the Sardinian Consul at Bordeaux, who executed literally some order 
which he gave him years previously, to burn his papers in case of his 
death occurring without his having claimed them. This order was 
supposed to have been given fi'om a fear of their not being arranged 
in a manner to do honor to his memory ; but his old father and his old 
friends here are in despair at it. Luckily, every person with whom he 
left papers did not think it necessary to act up to his order for burn- 
ing ; but, unfortunately, those on the United States had been deposited 
at Bordeaux. 

" I cannot say when any notes of mine will see the day, as diplo- 
mates must be more cautious than other people. But it amuses me to 
put my recollections together; and I feel a spur in looking at the 
stupid assertions and reflections of so many book-makers who have 
visited your country full of prejudice and vulgarity, and who describe 
the fungous populations of Irish or Germans, or Atlantic settlers at 
the West, as if they were natives, and very often in total forgetfulness 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH SIR AUGUSTUS FOSTER. 461 

of the old line, ' Ccehim, non animum mutant.' Captain Hall was here 
last winter and amused me with his criticisms, which smacked rather 
of editorial jealousy, on Rush's book, which seems to me a very good- 
humored, harmless account of England, far difierent from our own 
Bulwer's, and I dare say popular enough in the United States, where 
people must find much information on the every-day sort of matter in- 
troduced into it. 

"I have now got a leave of absence, and we shall be firet joined by 
my three boye, and then travel homewards and go to a country-place I 
have hired for the season in Norfolk, to be near our Cambridge, where 
I shall put my eldest in October. I sadly fear, therefore, we shall not 
have the pleasure of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Greene, but I expect to hear 
about them fi-om Mr. Seymour,* and I should be sorry not to be able 
to do the honors of this place to them; for there are several clever and 
scientific people here, and, though not given so much to the arts as the 
rest of Italy, yet is Turin highly respectable as a capital, and much the 
most national people are here of any in the peninsula. They were 
indeed esteemed by Bonaparte above all the others, and much em- 
ployed by him. And I am particularly acquainted with Plana, the 
Professor of Astronomy, and with Boucheron, Professor of Latin Elo- 
quence. 

" I will now conclude, with many congratulations on your prosperous 
situation every way, and beg you will give my best remembrances to 
Mrs. Quincy. 

" Yours most truly, 

" A. J. Foster. 

" I beg you to employ me, if 1 can be of use to you at any time." 

The following is the last letter my father received from Sir 
Augustus Foster, which I will insert in this place, although it be- 
longs chronologically to a somewhat later page. My brother and 
sister, Mr. and Mrs. Greene, visiting Europe a second time in 
1838-39, my father again gave them letters to his old friend, 
of which, unfortunately, they were again prevented from availing 
themselves. 

* Then British Minister at Florence ; now Sir George Hamilton Seymour, 
G. C. B. He was Minister at St. Petersburg at the breaking out of the war 
with Russia, as will be remembered by all familiar with that passage of recent 
history. 



462 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Sir Augustus Foster to President Quincy. 

" ToRiN, July 18, 1839. 

" My dear Sir : — I was very much pleased to get another letter 
from you, though sorry to see written on the back of It that the bearer, 
your son-in-law, could not deliver it in person, by which I know not 
■when I shall have the pleasure of making Mr. Greene's acquaintance. 
Turin would not have furnished, I fear, much nourishment for his 
favorite tastes, though the indigenous flowers are thought so well of, 
that I once sent a collection of them to the Horticultural Society, at 
their particular desire ; and the owners of landed property are be- 
ginning to take an interest in planting. Milan, however, is far beyond 
them in botanical knowledge, and at Monza is a first-rate garden. 

" I was happy to see you were in good spirits at the time of your 
writing, and could joke upon my Notes, although you say so much of 
Death and Fate, and your being destined perhaps to read them in 
Kingdom-come. And Avhy ? Are you so very old ? I own I thought 
you still a good bit under sixty. But I remember you used to have a 
fling every now and then, in the olden time, at the fate of us mortals 
being to vegetate and rot, though this consideration never seemed 
to oppress your spirits. For my part, as it was once my chance to 
cross Hyde Park with M, Delille, valet de chambre of Louis XV., 
when he was one hundred and seven years old, and who, although he 
had had to hide . . . . in Robespierre's time .... * was still a spruce 
fellow, and walked as straight as an arrow, I never can bring myself 
to believe but what I am still a youngster. However, I have my three 
sons just now all with me, who now and then waken me up from so 
agreeable a dream ; and, as In your country such youngsters may 
already be provided with other youngsters almost able to shove 
them also off the stage, I conclude your mementos are more strin- 
gent than mine, and therefore make yoii feel more near the edge 
of the great precipice. 

" Now, with respect to my Notes, you must observe that I am still in 
office ; and, though they are nearly ready for printing, yet they must 
not come forth till I am free, — though I doubt if they will be thought 
much of when they do come forth. This, however, I will tell you, — 
that I have a foible for your division of the country of Transatlantidis, 
that is, for New England, which I look upon as nearly as nmch su- 
perior to the districts south of the Susquehanna as Old England is to 
Hungary or Sicily. J. Randolph once told me that slaves were neces- 

* The detiiils of tlie hiding of this veteran are really too unsavory for the 
eye of this squeamish generation. 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH SIR AUGUSTUS FOSTER. 463 

sary to form a gentleman ; but J. Randolph knew little of Connecticut 
and Massachusetts, and would have made an excellent Russian noble- 
man. Did you ever hear of his having presented his letters of cre- 
dence to the Emperor at St. Petersburg on his knees ? It is a posi- 
tive fact. 

" I shall be much flattered by receiving a copy of your History of 
the American Cambridge University, and it will be a pleasure to trace 
with you its origin up to where it branched off from the parent stream, 
and then to the common source from whence the united channels, 
English and New English, were derived. 

" Knowledge has, I fear, become almost unfashionable, fi-om the 
weight of books and stupendous volumes which absolutely encumber 
the earth on every possible subject, and frighten the votaries of ease ; 
and fevv are the heads now-a-days which can expect to equal. In con- 
centration at least of acquirement, those of the fifteenth or sixteenth 
centuries, while books of reference under everybody's hand make us 
independent almost of studying. It Is a great pity, but it cannot be 
helped; and even reading the classics over again, or quoting them, is 
become far less common than it used to be. 

" When my eldest son, who has been attached to my mission for 
about two years, shall get into the diplomatic saddle, which I hope will 
happen in a year or two, I shall hope to get leave to retire to enjoy 
^ Olimn cum dhpiitate^ shouting out, '■Invent porhim : 5/?e.s' et Forluna 
valete!' And why may I not entertain some hopes of seeing you in 
England ? You will come over some day or other, and I trust I shall 
have a visit from you if you do. 

"I observe by the date of your letter, December 10, 1838, that your 
work must be out ; and, if so, may I request you to send me the copy 
you are so good as to promise me to my address, ' Foreign Office, 
Downing Street.' 

" I beg to repeat my best wishes for you and your family, and be- 
lieve me very truly and sincerely yours, 

" A. J. Foster." 

I believe the work on America which Sir Augustus Foster 
contemplated never saw the light. He retired from diplomatic 
life the year after the above letter was written, 1840, and re- 
turned to England. His life of various and useful public service 
came unhappily to a tragical conclusion. His health gave way 
under a complication of disorders which finally resulted in in- 
sanity, in an access of which he committed suicide, by cutting 



464 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

his throat, at his seat of Branksea Castle, Dorsetshire, on the 
1st of August, 1848. He is represented at present by his sec- 
ond son. Sir Cavendish Hervey Foster, who is in Holy Orders, 
his eldest son and successor having died in 1857. 

In the year 1834 President Quincy established a new rule of 
action in relation to the undergraduates, in the face o^ violent 
opposition outside the walls of the College as well as within 
them. That this should have been the case may seem a little 
surprising to simple citizens who have never enjoyed the advan- 
tages of a collegiate education. The new principle was this, — 
that, where flagrant outrages were committed against persons or 
property by members of the University, wathin its limits, they 
should be proceeded against, in the last resort, like any other 
citizens, before the courts of the Commonwealth. Non-aca- 
demical persons found it hard to understand why young gen- 
tlemen in the possession of privileges of education supei'ior to 
those they had themselves enjoyed should therefore be ex- 
empted from the penalties of the violated laws of the land, 
which would be inexorably visited on themselves or their sons 
in like case. Still, the application of this simple principle pro- 
duced a prodigious ferment among the students, which was 
stimulated and encouraged by parties in Boston, and even by 
a portion of the press. It is not impossible that a wish may 
have existed in some quarters that President Quincy should 
be driven to resign his office, which, undoubtedly, would not 
have remained vacant for lack of candidates for the succession. 
But all parties, young and old, in College and out, reckoned 
most egregiously without their host, if they thought he was to 
be driven from a post of duty by any outcries that boys or 
men could uplift. He had not fought with the wild beasts of 
the Congressional Ephesus for eight years, to be frightened from 
his propriety by any such uproar. I do not recollect all the par- 
ticulars of this disturbance, nor is it worth while to rake them up 
at this distance of time. Suffice it to say, that, although the 
students of thiat day were extremely well-conducted and gentle- 
manlike in their deportment as a general rule, yet it was a rule 
not without the exceptions necessary to prove it. In so large a 



COLLEGE DISTURBANCES. 465 

flock it was nothing strange that a few black sheep should be 
found. Wanton injury of a disgraceful kind was done to some 
part of the College buildings. An inquiry was instituted by the 
officers of the College, and every possible effort made to get at 
the root of the matter by a purely academical investigation. 
All attempts were in vain, through the evasions or refusals to 
testify of the parties examined, under the duress of that esprit 
du corps which obtains generally in such collections of young 
men. After every effort to sift the matter academically, and to 
deal with it only as a College offence, had been made and failed, 
the Piesident gave notice, on behalf of the Faculty, that the case 
would be laid before the Grand Jury, and the power of the law 
invoked to extort the testimony necessary to the discovery of 
the offender. This announcement gave rise to the fermentation 
among the students of which I have spoken, and which also ex- 
tended to the genera] community. Tlie students saw one of their 
immemorial privileges — that of exemption from public prosecu- 
tion for offences committed within the College walls — in peril, 
and they were almost, if not altogether, of one mind as to the 
atrocity of the innovation. Parties outside, from various motives, 
took the part of the young men, and protested against this de- 
parture from the principles of " paternal government," to which 
only the ingenuous youth of Harvard should be subjected. As 
if the duty as well as the right of the tenderest of fathers was 
not perfect to call in the protection of the laws against the vio- 
lence of his own sons ! It would hardly be credited if I should 
describe the vehemence with which this question was discussed, 
or the virulence with which the Faculty, but especially the 
President, was assailed by certain prints. 

All this commotion, however, disturbed not his purpose or his 
peace in the slightest degree. He was resolved that the pre- 
cincts of the University should not be made the sanctuary of 
ruffianism while he was at the head of it, and that the property 
intrusted to his care should not suffer from wanton mischief, if 
the laws of the State were sufficient to protect it. And he was 
sustained in his course, not only by the Corporation and the 
Faculty, but by the most weighty and considerable citi'cens, and 

20* DD 



466 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

by all who saw the matter in the h'ght of common-sense. Hia 
opinions and feelings on this subject are better expressed than I 
can do it in a letter to Judge Daniel Appleton Wiiite of Salem, 
— who was, to use his own words, " one of the earliest, dearest, 
most truly valued and beloved of all his friends," and who had 
written to him to express his cordial approbation of what he was 
doing, — of which the following is an extract : — 

" As to the opinion that the tribunals of the State are never to be 
resorted to on occasions of this kind, I am prepared to show that it Is 
most corrupting to our youth, — the greatest source of the temptations 
to outrage, to falsehood, and combinations, which, In every period of 
the history of our College, have been its trouble and disgrace. 

" The subject is of vast interest. So far from never resorting to tri- 
bunals of justice, the true principle is, that outrages of this kind, which 
are the effect of combination, should never be allowed to be passed 
over without an investigation competent to deuelop and detect, and 
that a College Faculty, after having used all the means of the parental 
and domestic character to ascertain the offender without success, 
should be placed under a positive obligation never to fail to apply to the 
tribunals. There Is no reason why youth in our colleges should feel or 
believe that they are under less liabilities than youth of the same age 
in the community ; or that, because they are gentlemen's sons, and 
have the highest motives and noblest inducements to good conduct, 
the same act shall be deemed sport in them, which. If done by the 
son of a laborer or mechanic, he must take his place in the jail or 
State's prison." 

Influenced by these views of his duty, President Quincy went 
forward and discharged it fearlessly and fully. Had he been 
vulnerable to " paper bullets of the brain," volleys enough were 
showered upon him to deter him from its performance. Every 
day newspapers were sent to him, with the trenchant passages 
carefully marked, so that the shaft might not miss of its aim. 
The perusal of these diatribes was usually reserved for the tea- 
table, when they were read aloud for the diversion of the family ; 
and they were carefully preserved, for the benefit of posterity, by 
one of my sisters, in a scrap-book, which is destined to be depos- 
ited, by the request of one of my father's honored successors, in 
the archives of the College, in perpetuam rei memoriam. All his 



SECOia) CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF 1836. 407 

popularity with the students vanished. An eminent gentleman 
lately told me, that he used to look upon ray father at that time 
as " the wickedest old man that ever lived," and that this was 
the general opinion of the College. But he established his point, 
and that so effectually, that I believe there has been no occasion 
to resort to the State courts since then, or, if so, it has been ac- 
cepted ns an inevitable necessity. The Board of Overseers at 
their next meeting appointed a committee, on the motion of Mr. 
John Quincy Adams, of which he was the chairman, to report 
upon this matter. Mr, Adams made a detailed report, sustain- 
ing the course of the President and Faculty in every particular, 
which the Board accepted unanimously by yeas and nays. Be- 
fore quitting this subject, I may as well say here, that, on the 
day of the last Commencement at which he presided, the mem- 
bers of the class which had been the one mainly implicated in 
these troubles waited upon him in a body, and made him an 
address expressive of the change of opinion which ten years 
had worked in them all as to his official conduct and his moral 
character. 

On the 17th of September, 1836, the completion of the second 
century since the foundation of the College was duly celebrated. 
It was an anniversary of singular interest, and its celebration 
was most brilliant and successful. Sons of Harvard came from 
every quarter of the country to do honor to their common moth- 
er on her two-hundredth birthday. The weather was perfect, 
and the scene eminently beautiful and touching. Fifteen hun- 
dred graduates, and a great number of friends of the College 
besides, assembled in honor of the occasion. President Quincy 
delivered the Address to the Alumni in the church, where ap- 
propriate exercises were had, in which he gave a succinct 
account of the origin and growth of the College. This after- 
wards grew into the " History of Harvard College," in two vol- 
umes, which was published five years afterwards, of which I 
shall speak again. As no hall belonging to the College was 
sufficient for the company assembled, a pavilion was erected in 
the grounds adequate to receive them all for the festivities which 
crowned the day, Mr. Harrison Gray Otis, as one of the oldest 



468 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

and most eminent of the graduates, had been invited to preside 
at the dinner; but the sudden death of Mrs. Otis preventing his 
attendance, his place was most admirably and appropriately filled 
by Mr, Everett, then Governor of the State. It need not be 
said that he performed his festive duty with infinite grace and 
felicity. In the evening the Colleges were illuminated, and a 
reception was held at the President's hou>e, which was attended 
by great numbers of distinguished strangers who had been called 
together by the anniversary, and of the principal inhabitants of 
Boston, in addition to the society of Cambridge itself. It was a 
day never to be forgotten by those who had the good fortune to 
see it. 

The two principal permanent additions which were made to 
the College in its literary and scientific departments in President 
Quincy's time, and largely through his personal influence and 
exertions, were the new library building, Gore Hall, and the 
Astronomical Observatory. The library had long since out- 
grown the limits of Harvard Hall, where it had been deposited 
for more than seventy yearsj and demanded more room in which 
to extend itself, as well as a place of greater security from fire. 
The library was unavoidably exposed to accident by fire, or to 
injury from wanton mischief, in consequence of the College bell 
being hung in the belfry on Harvard Hall. This circumstance 
made it necessary to leave the outer door unlocked, during the 
night, for the early admission of the bell-ringer. In the course 
of some repairs upon the building, alter Mr. Quincy's accession, 
a loaded shell was found concealed in it, stolen from the United 
States arsenal in the neighborhood, the fuse of which had happily 
gone out before reaching the charge. It was believed that this 
crime had been committed by a student who had been expelled 
shortly before my father's inauguration, I believe for stealing 
books from the library. This circumstance naturally increased 
greatly the President's anxiety for the safety of this most pre- 
cious possession, for which he felt himself responsible ; and, also, 
it was one main reason for his determination to establish the 
precedent that students guilty of crimes of violence against per- 
ft-')ns or property should enjoy no immunity, because of their 



GORE HALL. 469 

academic status, from the penalties of the laws of tlie land. 
He wrote a pamphlet, setting forth the urgency of the case, and 
petitioned the General Court to make an appropriation for a new 
library building, (the professors of the theological seminaries at 
Andover and at Newton joining in the prayer,) but failed to 
convince the collective wisdom of the State that it was any affair 
of theirs. 

But he was determined to accomplish this object, which was 
essential to the growth of the library, as well as to its safety; for 
obviously it was vain to expect liberal donations to a collection 
which already had not room where to bestow its present posses- 
sions, and which was exposed to the same calamity which had 
destroyed the original library in 1764, to the irreparable loss of 
the College and the public. 

Fortunately the Corporation had at their disposal the munifi- 
cent legacy of Governor Christopher Gore, which had wisely 
been left at their disposal without conditions. As almost every 
department of instruction needed reinforcement, it was matter of 
grave and mature deliberation, extending over several years, 
whether so large a sum should be invested in stone and mor- 
tar, instead of in the enlargement of the opportunities and advan- 
tages for the imparting of knowledge. The urgent necessity of 
the case, however, decided the Corporation to apply Governor 
Gore's legacy to the erection of a fire-proof building, capable of 
receiving the existing library and the large additions which it 
was reasonable to believe would be made to it as soon as room 
was provided for thevn. The corner stone was accordingly laid 
on the 25th of April, 1838, and the library removed to its new 
depository in August, 1841. The building is one of the few con- 
nected with the College which make any pretensions to architec- 
tural beauty, and is creditable to the tas;e, as well as the forecast, 
of the authorities by whom it was constructed. The faith in 
which Gore Hall was built, that the furnishing of a proper and 
safe receptacle for the library would be the means of attracting 
donations to it, has become already sight. In proof of which, I 
will ^tate that, almost immediately after the library had been 
removed to Gore Hall, President Quincy obtained, by subscrio- 



470 LIFE OF JOSI.VH QUIXCY. 

tion, almost for the asking, more than twenty-one thousand dol- 
lars for the purchase of books. This he was induced to do, in 
part, as an answer to the disapprobation expressed by many per- 
sons — among them some of the best friends of the College — at 
this disposition of Governor Gore's money. AVhen the appro- 
priation was made, it was in the belief that the contemplated 
building would be sufficient to accommodate all the accumula- 
tions the library would be likely to receive during the present 
century. In about twenty-five years since its occupation its space 
has been entirely filled, and more than filled, and an enlargement 
of its walls is already imperatively called for by the necessities 
of its growth. Mr. Quincy had endeavored, many years before, 
to inspire the graduates and the general public with a due sense 
of the importance of providing for the enlargement and safety of 
the library, but without success. It was therefore doubly grati- 
fying to him to have his views thus liberally carried into effect, 
and that under his own immediate influence and direction as the 
head of the University. 

The most enlightened friends of the College, and all every- 
where especially interested in the advancement of science in this 
country, had long felt the importance of having an Astronomical 
Observatory attached to this, the oldest of American cvlleges, 
because of the obvious convenience of such a connection, and 
of the advantage and credit which each institution would derive 
from the other. Mr. John Quincy Adams, when Secretary of 
State, and afterwards when President, had strenuously urged 
upon the Corporation the importance of establishing an Observa- 
tory at Cambridge as near the Colleges as possible, and proved 
his sincerity by offering to give one thousand dollars (a much 
largei sum forty years ago than now) towards this object, if the 
necessary funds could be raised within a specified time. Mr. 
Quincy had entered into this proposition with his usual zeal at 
that time ; but nothing came of it then. But after his establish- 
ment at Cambridge he began to feel his way more definitely 
towards the accomplishment of this object, and never lost sight 
of it till it was done. In all his proceedings in this direction 
it may be well believed that he had the earnest encourage- 



THE OBSERVATORY. 471 

ment and help of his illustrious colleague in the Corporation, 
Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, though that great man did not survive 
to witness the success of the undertaking. The first step to- 
wards the completion of the design was the purcl|ase of a house 
on a slight elevation in the neighborhood of the Colleges, suffi- 
ciently convenient for the purpose, where the infant institution 
fir>t began its life. In 1839 a new impulse was given to the 
movement bj the ojiportunity of securing as Observer Mr. Wil- 
liam Cranch Bond, of Boston, who was at that time employed by 
the United States government in a series of scientific observations 
in connection with the Exploring Expedition in the South Seas, 
and who was provided with a proper apparatus for that purpose. 
The consent of the government at Washington being first ob- 
tained for the removal of the apparatus and the observations 
to Cambridge, Mr. Bond was appointed Observer, and the neces- 
sary funds obtained for the alterations in the house and the 
additions requisite to fit it for its new uses, chiefly by the influ- 
ence and exertions of the President. The instruments — other 
than those already owned by the College and those brought 
with him by Mr. Bond — which were wanting for the purposes 
of the small beginnings of the Observatory were furnished by the 
liberality of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

The experience of a few years, however, showed that a build- 
ing constructed expressly for the purpose, and instruments of a 
more perfect description, were indispensable to the performance 
of the proper office of an Observatory. Just at this time the 
magnificent apparition of the comet of 1843 had turned the 
thoughts of all sorts of men to the wonders of the heavens. 
President Quincy seized the opportunity, and, by his personal 
representations mainly, obtained the funds necessary for building 
the present Observatory and equipping it with its necessary 
apparatus, especially with the great equatorial telescope, second 
only, at the time it was procured, to that at Pulkowa. The large 
sums necessary for these purposes President Quincy obtained, 
with small urgency, from the enlightened munificence of the 
capitalists and merchants of Massachusetts, chiefly of Boston, 
who entex'ed into the plan with a zeal higlily honorable to their 



472 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

intelligence and liberality. This was the crowning glory of his 
administration, and fitly rounded it by a service of enduring 
value to the University and to the world. His interest in the 
Observatory did not cease with his official life, but continued to 
the end of his days. It was through his influence that his rela- 
tive and former ward, Edward Bromfield Phillips, of the Class of 
1845, a young man of large fortune, bequeathed the sum of one 
hundred thousand dollars to the general purposes of the Observa- 
tory, and which was received only too soon through his untimely 
death. Mr. Quincy was a member of the Visiting Committee 
of the Observatory until his death, and in 1855, wishing to pay 
the legacy his father had left to the College in the event of his 
own death under age, he gave the sum of ten thousand dollars as 
a fund to defray the expenses of its publications. 

During Mr. Quincy's Presidency his familiarity with affairs 
and his experience in the management of property enabled him 
to do the University good service in the matter of the jiurchase 
of lands — important then to its purposes, and of greatly in- 
creased value now — on reasonable terms. He conducted a 
negotiation of some intricacy with the First Parish in Cam- 
bridge, by which he succeeded in obtaining for the College the 
site formei'ly occupied by the old meeting-liouse, which had seen 
the Commencements of many years ; where the pew in which 
Washington had sat during the siege of Boston could be pointed 
out; and where the Convention had been held in 1779 which 
framed the Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780, — that model 
of a government for a free commonwealth, almost every de- 
parture from which has been a blunder and a misfortune. By 
the same operation he obtained the parsonage house, which stood 
near the corner of what is now Quincy Street. These two 
purchases helped to round the College grounds, with which same 
object President Quincy completed other purchases, amounting 
in all to about nine acres, the possession of which is of inesti- 
mable value to the University. He also obtained at a fair bar- 
gain the land on which the Observatory stands, and that apper- 
taining fo it, the worth of which has been very greatly enhanced 
since then by the rise in the price of real estate in Cambridge. 



LETTER FROM CHANCELLOR KENT. 473 

In 1840 Mr. Quincy's " History of Harvard College," in two 
volumes, appeared, his Address at the Centennial Celebration 
having grown under his industrious hands to that size. It is safe 
to say that he has exhausted that interesting portion of the his- 
tory of New England, which will never need to be written 
again. It was done with the most conscientious care, all his 
statements being made after a strict verification by contemporary 
records and authorities, and the narrative is conden^ed, clear, and 
concise. He found himself obliged to speak of some of the 
favorite characters of Massachusetts history in a different tone 
from that used regarding them by previous writers. Particu- 
larly, he felt obliged to paint the Mathers in darker colors than 
those in which they are usually portrayed. His account of the 
behavior of Governor John Hancock towards the College, in his 
capacity as Treasurer, placed the character of that celebrated per- 
son in a new light, not altogether so flattering as that in which 
it is usually displayed. The work was received, however, by the 
friends of the College with much favor, as a general thing, and 
he was held to have judged in the main righteous judgment in 
the cases as to which he had felt himself obliged to differ from the 
traditional opinions as to the characters of famous men. 

Chancellor Kent to President Quincy. 

" New York, March 8, 1841. 

" My dear Sir: — I have just finished the perusal of the two vol- 
umes of your ' History of Harvard University,' and I cannot refrain 
from returning you my grateful thanks for the deep interest your tal- 
ents, accuracy, principles, and taste, and the beautiful sketches of your 
daughter, have ^enabled me to take in the work. It is, in point of me- 
chanical execution, a woi-k worthy of the dignity of the subject. It is 
the history of all the illustrious men in church and state who have 
adorned the annals of Massachusetts for the last two centuries, and 
you have vindicated and illustrated their fam^ with equal candor, 

liberality, force, and elegance I admire and revere the uniform 

wisdom and fairness, learning and accomplishments, of the authorities 
of the University, and the fortitude and perseverance with which they 
sustained the interests of the Institution, and its pure and catholic 
character, amidst all difficulties and opposition. 

" I hope I have not been too Intrusive ; and I beg leave to add my 



'474 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

best respects to Mrs. Quincy and your family, and to assure you of the 
great respect and esteem of your obliged servant, 

"James Kent." 

In the year 1836 Mr. James Grahame, the author of a His- 
tory of the United States which has not yet obtained the general 
reputation in this country to which its profound research, judicial 
impartiality, clear method, and transparent style justly entitle it, 
and which it cannot fail ultimately to secure, transmitted for safe- 
keeping in the library at Cambridge a small manuscript, con- 
taining a list of the authorities he had used in the preparation of 
his great work. In the year 1839 the University bestowed upon 
Mr. Grahame the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, in testi- 
mony of the sense the governing authorities entertained of the 
obligations under which he had laid the American department of 
the republic of letters. The formal communications incident to 
these transactions grew into a cordial and friendly correspond- 
ence between President Quincy and Mr. Grahame, which was 
kept up until terminated by the death of that excellent and ac- 
complished man. The following letter sets forth in mild and 
candid terms the objections which were expressed by other emi- 
nent gentlemen, through the religious press, as to the treatment 
of the character of the Mathers. Mr. Quincy's answer to Mr. 
Grahame is the one he would have made to his Cisatlantic 
critics, had he not thought it best to let his narrative, supported 
by the authorities he cites, be its own defence. 

Mr. Grahame to Mr. Quincy. 

" 5 Place db Ladnat 1 Nantes, July 4, 1841. 

" My dear Sir : — I write while I am scarce able to manage a pen. 
Let me begin by felicitating you on this anniversary, and joining with 
you in the gratitude which it claims from us to Almighty God. The 
4th of July is a glorious date for North America, and, I trust, the dawn 
of a long and happy day for her and for all the world. 

" A week ago I received a copy of your History of Harvard Uni- 
versity The enfeebled state of my health has obliged me to de- 
cline for a long time all study or mental exertion ; but I have not been 
able to refrain from looking into j'our History, of which, however, I 
have read little more than one hundred pages. All that I have x'ead 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. JAMES GRAHAME. 475 

commands my respect and admiration, but the beginning engages my 
love. Notlung can be more interesting, or more nobly worthy the 
noble subject, than your exordium. I shall express my opinion more 
distinctly and freely than would become a letter to you in the next 
edition of" my own historical work. 

" As you advance, you wound some of my prejudices. The Mathers 
are very dear to me, and you attack them with a severity the more 
painful to me that I am unable to demur to its justice. I would fain 
think that you do not make sufficient allowance for the spirit of their 
timet. My heart and judgment are with them in point of doctrine. 
From their views of discipline my judgment utterly revolts. Yet in 
a deep corner of my heart, quite unassailable by reason, there lies in- 
tertwined with my being a tender love for the primitive Puritans and 
the old charter of New England. I do not despair of your indulgence. 
I regard the primitive Puritans much as I do the Scottish Covenant- 
ers, — regretfully disapproving and completely dissenting from many 
of their views and opinions, especially their favorite scheme of the 
intertexture of church and state, which appears to me not merely 
unchristian but antichristian. But I candidly embrace all that is 
purely doctrinal in their system, and regard their persons with a proud, 
jealous love that makes me indulgent even to their errors. Carrying 
then' heavenly treasures in earthly vessels, they could not fail to err. 
But theirs were the errors of noble minds. How different from the 
cunning of knaves, fools, and lukewarm professors ! I forget what poet 
it is who says, 

* Some failings are of nobler kind 
Than virtues of a narrow mind.' 

" Farewell, my dear sir. Believe me, with highest respect and es- 
teem, your faithful friend, 

"J. Grahame." 

Mr. Quincy to Mr. Grahame. 

" Cambridge, September 20, 1841. 

" My dear Sir : — I am grieved to find by your favor of July last 
that your health has been assailed and is yet precarious, and unite my 
prayers to those of your friends and relatives, that a life so deservedly 
dear to them, and in which so much has been done for truth and lit- 
erature, should long be spared to their affections and hopes. 

" The kind thoughts you express concerning my History are justly 
valued. I am not insensible to the pleasure of being laudatus a lau- 
dato viro, nor do I object to any criticism proceeding fi'om a sound 
judgment and a kind spirit. 



476 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" I was aware of the favorable tendencies of your mind towards the 
Puritans. Those of my own mind are not less strong and decided. 
The subject of my History was not selecte'l by me. It was forced 
upon me by accident. It was undertaken and pursued as an official 
duty, with a determination on the one hand to derive no profit from 
its sale should it result in pecuniary gain, and a like determination to 
indemnify the institution should it result as I anticipated, and as will 
be the case, in pecuniary loss. I early found that my researches would 
compel me to exhibit certain favorites of parties in church and state 
in lights very different from those in which they appear in popular 
histories, and even in which they had stood among my own prejudices. 
I adopted, therefore, the principle of placing in my Appendix every 
new document from which such different views resulted, at length. 
Affording every reader opportunities to judge for himself concerning 
the correctness of those I presented, taking the law of history as laid 
down by the Roman orator as an undeviating rule of conduct, — ne 
quid falsi. I am not conscious of having deviated from this law in 
any case. 

" The difference to which I allude is most remarkable in respect to 
the Mathers among the divines, and to Hancock among the politicians. 
It was imfjosslble to write the history of the College without bringing 
their conduct under animadversion. I am perfectly willing to leave 
the truth and justice of my history in relation to them to the decision 
of future times. The work is too local and individual to excite a gen- 
eral interest in it. My determination to raise in it a monument to 
every benefactor of the College, be he small or great, humble or high, 
renders it unavoidably a collection of details in themselves of very 
limited attraction. But my object was usefulness to the College, and 
I thought I should in no way be more serviceable to it than by making 
its history a medium of expressing its gratitude. Although the path 
of fame may thus have been neglected, that of duty has been followed. 

" I enclose official acknowledgments to you and your brother for the 
books presented to our library. They are highly valued, not only for 
their intrinsic worth or curiosity, but fi-om the evidence they convey 
of your interest in our institution. 

" Hoping this correspondence will be neither infrequent nor soon 
interrupted, I am, most respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"JOSIAH QuiNCY." 

This admirable person died in just a year, wanting a day, from 
tbe date of his last letter, on the 3d of July, 1842, the eve of 



MEMOIR OF MR. GRAHAME. 477 

that great American festival in wliicli be felt all an American's 
interest and pride. At the request of the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society, my father prepared a brief memoir of the life of 
Grahame, which was afterwards prefixed, at the request of the 
historian's family, to the American edition in four volumes of his 
History, corrected and enlarged by himself, published in Boston 
in 1845. My father took an active intei'est in this publication, 
and corrected the press himself. The friendship which had ex- 
isted between my father and INIr. Grahame yet continues be- 
tween their respective families, and is maintained by a cordial 
correspondence. 

The Memoir of Grahame which my father prepared for the 
Massachusetts Historical Society was the occasion of involving 
him in an unpleasant controversy with Mr. George Bancroft, 
who followed Mr. Grahame in the field of American history. 
Grahame, in treating of the course pursued by John Clarke, the 
agent of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations, to pro- 
cure from Charles II. the charter under which that common- 
vvealth flourished for nearly two centuries, said that " Clarke 
conducted his negotiation with a baseness that rendered the suc- 
cess of it dearly bought." In a note to the passage of his own 
History relating to that period, Mr. Bancroft, after eulogizing 
the general character cf John Clarke, said, " The charge of ' base- 
ness^ in Grahame, I. 315, edition of 1836, is Grahame's own 
invention!" — an imputation against an historian of most so- 
licitous accuracy and a gentleman of unblemished honor as gross 
and offensive as language could well convey. Mr. Grahame 
felt the affront as any man of sensibility and self-respect must 
have done, and his sense of it was conveyed to the American 
public by his friend Mr. Robert Wal^h, formerly editor of the 
National Gazette of Pliiladelphia, then residing at Paris, in a 
letter to the New York American. But though the pain he 
had given to Mr. Grahame by this aspersion had been thus 
brought to the notice of Mr. Bancroft, years passed away with 
no proper offer of reparation. Accordingly, when preparing the 
revised edition of his History, to be published after his death, 
Mr. Grahame appended the following severely temperate note 
to the passage which had called forth the insult : — 



478 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" Mr. Bancroft has, -with a strange lack of courtesy and correctness, 
reproached me with having invented the charge I have made against 
Clarke. I am incapable of such dishonesty ; and sincerely hope that 
Mr. Bancroft's reproach is, and will continue, on his part, a solitary 
deviation from candor and rectitude." 

My father well knew that the publication of this note would 
inevitably provoke Mr. Bancroft to an angry reply, but hi>; sense 
of duty as an editor would not permit him to suppress it. Hav- 
ing DO disposition, however, to have an altercation with Mr. 
Bancroft, he did not mention the matter in the Memoir, and 
made no use of the evidence as to the full particulars of Mr. 
Bancroft's conduct towards Mr. Grahame, which had been for- 
warded by that historian's fiimily, together with the revised copy 
of the history. On the 4th of March, 1846, Mr. Bancroft ad- 
dressed a letter to Mr. Joseph T. Buckingham, editor of the 
Boston Courier, complaining of " a groundless attack " upon 
himself, and " a grievous wrong " to the memory of Clarke, con- 
tained in the recently republished History of Grahame. The 
letter charged Mr. Quincy with giving publicity to his (Gra- 
hame's) personal criminations of himself (Mr. Bancroft) ; with 
lending his aid to the promulgation of Grahame's " renewed de- 
traction" of Claike; and with stepping forward to "defend the 
new version of the calumny, accompanied by an impeachment 
of his [Mr. Bancroft's] 'candor,' 'correctness,' and 'rectitude.'" 
The " new version of the calumny " refers to a change of phrase 
adopted by Mr. Grahame, because of the displeasure which his 
strictures on Clarke had excited "in some of the literati of 
Rhode Island," in which he substituted for the word '■'■ baseness" 
the periphrasis " suppleness of adroit servility,''' — one of the few 
cases in which it must be confessed strength does not sufft-r from 
dilution. The letter to the Courier ended with these words : 
" 3Tr. Quincy oives it to me, and owes it to the memory of the dead 
whom he has xoronged, to correct the statements he has put forth ; 
and, as he published Grahame^s work by subscription, he should 
send a copy of the correction to ei'ery one of his subscribers." 

On this hint IMr. Quincy spoke. He began by thanking Mr. 
Bancroft for the la.-t sugge-tion, and promised that every sub- 



DEALINGS WITH MR. BANCROFT. 479 

scriber to the History should have a copy of his reply, and that it 
should have, if possible, as extensive a circulation as the History 
of Mr. Grahame or that of Mr, Bancroft. I have not room for 
any detailed account of this trenchant pamphlet. Its title con- 
veys its suUstance in little. It runs thus : " The Memory of the 
late James Grahame, Historian, etc., vindicated from the Charges 
of ' Detraction ' and ' Calumny ' preferred against him by Mr. 
George Bancroft, and the Conduct of Mr. Bancroft towards that 
Historian stated and exposed." I think all impartial readers of 
the pamphlet will admit that, in this case at least, the campaign 
came up to the pi-oclamation. Mr. Quincy cites anew the au- 
thorities which led to Grahame's severe condemnation of Clarke, 
and shows that his expression of opinion was supported by the 
statements of Chalmers and Hazard, writers of unquestioned 
accuracy and fidelity ; and he shows the entire insufficiency of 
Mr. Bancroft's attempt to justify his imputation to Mr. Grahame 
of falsification of history, even if the facts he alleged in his own 
defence should be admitted to be true. This main matter de- 
spatched, he gives in full the pai'ticulars, previously withheld, of 
the conduct of Mr. Bancroft towards Mr. Grahame from the be- 
ginning, with which the Grahame family had furnished him, which 
presents a melancholy or an amusing picture, according to the 
mood of the reader, of the littlenesses into which personal rival- 
ship and literary jealousy can betray even men of unquestionable 
talent and extensive experience of the world. 

The following letter from Sir John F. W. Herschel, the as- 
tronomer, the intimate friend and a near connection by marriage 
of Mr. Grahame, will fitly conclude this interesting passage of my 
father's life. 

Sir John F. W. Herschel, Bart., to President Quincy. 

" CoLLiNGwooD, Hawkhubst, Kent, October 29, 1845. 
" . . . . Allow me to congratulate you on your having brought your 
labors in this matter [the Memoir of Mr. Grahame] to a close, in a 
manner calculated to give the highest satisfaction to the friends of your 
historian, and to enhance his reputation in America. Independent of 
other considerations, you have produced in this Memoir a remarkably 
pleasing, uninjlated, and able work, which will not be without its influ- 



480 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ence on your own literary fame so far as its style is concerned, and 
which, from the motives which have prompted you in its production, 
must win for you the hearty approbation of all good men, be their 
political or national views what they may. 

" Believe me, dear sir, your faitliful and obedient servant, 

"J. F. W. Herschel." 

The superintendence of Graliame's Hi.-^tory was the last busi- 
ness which occupied my father's time and thoughts at Cambridge. 
The Preface bears date the 9th of September, 1845, which was 
after his resignation had taken effect, and about a week before 
his removal to Boston. When he accepted the Presidency, it was 
on the express understanding with the Corporation that he should 
not be asked to stay after the expiration of four years, if he should 
wish then to end his relations with the University, He had vol- 
untarily stayed four times the stipulated term. He had more than 
passed the appointed agv, of man, yet was not his eye dim nor his 
strength abated. There was no apparent reason why he might 
not continue fit for the office for ten years longer. But he was 
resolved that he would leave his post when the wish was yet gen- 
eral that he should remain at it, and before there could be the 
faintest suspicion that his powers were beginning to "fail him. 
Besides, Mr. Edward Everett was just returned from his resi- 
dence at the English court. The general voice of the graduates 
and of the public named him as the proper person to succeed to 
the Presidency, whenever my father should vacate it. Mr. Ev- 
erett was alsa my father's first and last choice. After Dr. Kirk- 
land's resignation, and before he himself had been thought of for 
the office, Mr. Everett was his favorite candidate ; and it was only 
the consciousness that it was not to be expected that so young and 
so able a man would be content to settle himself permanently in 
an academic retirement that prevented him from pressing the 
nomination at that time. But now, that Mr. Everett had run tlie 
career of public honors, — after ten years in Congress, four in the 
Governor's chair, and as many in the most brilliant diplomatic 
position in Europe, — it seemed as if the fitting time had come 
when he could bring his honors, his long experience, his consum- 
n>ate scholarship, and his rare gift of speech, and lay them cheer- 



RESIGNS THE PRESIDENCY. 481 

fully at the feet of his Alma Mater. My father resolved not to 
stiind in the way of one whom he esteemed the man of men for 
the office he held. He took his measures accordingly, no one 
knowing his intention, excepting his family at Cambridge, until 
the moment of action. He called a meeting of the Corporation 
in Boston, and took Judge Story along with him in his carriage, 
who had not a suspicion of the purpose for which the meeting was 
called At the meeting he gave in his resignation of his office to 
the Board, to take effect after the next Commencement. The 
Fellows were entirely taken by surprise, and at first utterly re- 
fused to entertain the proposition. At least, they would nor ac- 
cept his resignation until he had had some further time to reflect 
upon it. But he had anticipated this action, and taken his meas- 
ures accordingly. That morning he had given, in confidence, 
a copy of his letter of resignation to Mr. Hale, of the Daily 
Advertiser, with directions to have it appear the next morning. 
The letter was already in type. It was too late to recall it. 
Expostulation would be only a waste of breath. So his resigna- 
tion was perforce accepted according to its terms. 

It was very fortunately timed. All the conditions which he 
had wished should accompany it were satisfied. There could be 
no question as to his perfect physical and mental competency to 
perform the duties of the office. All connected with the Univer- 
sity, its general and immediate governments, the graduates, and 
the undergraduates, were unanimous in their regrets at his leaving, 
and in their wish that he should remain. He had done all that 
he intended to do when he took office. Under his administration 
the finances of the University had been reduced to order, and it^ 
funds largely increased. The instruction had been enlarged and 
improved in every direction. He had connected his name per- 
manently with its history by three most important additions to its 
usefulness. The Law School, though in existence when he be- 
came President, had but a name to live. Under him it had 
grown into proportions worthy of its great office, — the formation 
of sound lawyers, learned judges, and able statesmen. Gore 
Hall had been built and dedicated to the uses of the library, — a 
fit receptacle for that function which is to a university what the 

21 EB 



482 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

brain is to a man. And he might claim as his esf^iecial work the 
estabhshment and equipment of the Observatory. He might with 
truth affirm that he left the institution in every particular in the 
most flourishing condition, both as to prosperity and usefulness, 
that it had ever been in from its foundation. And on this point 
I can cite the authentic testimony of President Walker, my 
fathers third successor, who thus spoke of hira at the dinner 
of the Alumni, July 19, 1866: "I have been led to review 
with some cpre his administration of the College, and the effect 
of it fuij- oeen greatly to increase my sense of the obligations 
the College is under to him. Sixteen years of more devoted, 
unremitting, unwearied work in the service of a public institu- 
tion were never spent by mortal man. And when we call to 
mind the state of things at the time of his appointment, it seems 
to me that he will be forever remembered as the great Or- 
ganizer OF THE University." 

On Commencement Day, then, the 27th of August, 1845, he 
took leave of his office and retired to private life. The fact of 
its being his last appearance in his official capacity caused a 
larger attendance than usual of the Alumni, especially of those 
who had received their education under his auspices. It was a 
day of great and general interest. My father was now in his 
seventy-fourth year, but time had touched him with a gentle 
hand, and he hardly seemed older than he did at his inaugura- 
tion. His figure was still erect, his step firm and elastic, his 
voice clear and resonant, his presence and manner, in making the 
Latin addresses and giving the degrees, as full of grace and dig- 
nity as at his first Commencement. He was eminently qualified 
for all occasions of public representation by his noble head and 
gracious countenance, his fine person, and the ease and grace of 
his movements. After he had conferred the degrees for the last 
time, the Governor, Mr. Briggs, rose and read the resolutions 
written and offered by John Quincy Adams, and passed unani- 
mously that morning by the Overseers upon his resignation being 
officially communicated to them. He was taken entirely by sur- 
prise, but replied in a few feeling and fitting sentences, which left 
nothing to be desired. The reception at the President's house 



HIS LAST COMMENCEMENT. 483 

was very numerously attended, and all sorts of people seemed 
desirous of manifesting their respect for his character and their 
sense of his services. His relations with the officers of instruc- 
tion and government had always been of the most cordial and 
confidential description. Having no charge whatever of teach- 
ing connected with his functions, he kept himself advised of the 
manner in which each professor and tutor did his work, and 
frequently made visits of inspection and examination, so that his 
superintending eye should be ever felt by all parties to be upon 
them. In the arrangement and direction of studies he took an 
intelligent and active share, endeavoring to make the labors of 
the teachers as easy and agreeable as was consistent with their 
duty to the taught. These gentlemen took a proper occasion to 
express their feelings of respect, gratitude, and affection in an 
address couched in fit and touching words. 

With the undergraduates also, the President, as a general 
thing, was very popular, although I have had occasion to speak 
of a signal exception to the general rule. But though, on 
other occasions than that one, he was not unfrequently called on 
to administer discipline which exposed him to temporary dissatis- 
factions and dislikes, I believe there were none, even of the suf- 
ferers, who did not ultimately acknowledge the justice and clem- 
ency of his academical administration. The undergraduates paid 
him the parting and graceful compliment of requesting him to sit 
for his bust, to be placed in the library of the University. This 
work was admirably performed by that eminent artist, Thomas 
Crawford. As a portrait-bust, and as a work of art, it is of the 
highest merit, and does equal justice to the subject and the sculptor. 
Of what was then regarded by the young men as the heaviest to 
be borne of all their afflictions, the President showed his readiness 
to share the burden. Morning prayers were then held at a very 
early hour, — at six in summer, as I remember, and at the earli- 
est moment at which it was possible to read in winter. During 
the sixteen years of his administration he never missed a single 
morning prayer from illness, and only three in all, — and this 
occasioned by his attendance on court at Concord as a witness on 
business of the College. He was always in his seat in the chapel, 



484 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

facing the students, before tliey or the officiating officer arrived. 
During this long term of service, moreover, he had been absent 
from the religious services in the chapel on Sundays but one 
half-day, when he was called away by the last illness of a near 
relative. During his term of office, also, he never attended the 
theatre nor permitted card-playing in the President's house, 
though both before and after he had no objection to a play, nor 
to a solemn game of whist. I will not affirm that his example 
in these respects had the effect of producing absolute conformity 
to it on the part of the undergraduates ; but he was resolved 
that he should not be known to indulge in amusements which 
were foi'bidden to them by the laws of the College, and for their 
indulging in which he might have to administer its discipline. 

A residence of sixteen years in Cambridge could not be broken 
up by my father's family without emotion at the remembrance of 
the many happy hours they had spent there, and the many friends 
they would leave behind them. They were years of unbroken 
prosperity and happiness. Neither death nor sickness had en- 
tered their doors, with the single exception of that of ray mother's 
mother, whose euthanasia at ninety-three was rather like trans- 
lation than death. It was a life of continual variety. Boston 
was so near, that the family were not separated from the society 
of that city, while they had in addition the polished and culti- 
vated circle which had gathered around the College. Many 
valuable and permanent friendships grew out of that Cambridge 
sojourn, which were not left behind at the return to Boston. 
Every stranger from abroad, or from other parts of this country, 
found his way to Cambridge, and to the President's house, and 
many interesting and valuable additions, foreigners as well as 
natives, were made to the acquaintanceships, and sometimes to 
the friendships, of my father and his family. And there was, 
after all, no real separation from the Cambridge circle. For 
years, Saturday was " Cambridge day " at my father's house, 
when his friends from Cambridge were sure of finding him and 
the ladies of his household at home, and sure, too, of a cordial 
welcome to his fireside and to his table. On the 16th of Sep- 
tember, 184o, the removal was completed, and my father entered 
upon the last stage of his long journey through life. 



HOUSE ON BEACON HILL. 485 



CHAPTEK XIX. 

1845-1855. 

House on IJeacon Hill. — Preparations to meet Old Age. — Diary. — 
JIemoik of Major Shaw. — Classical Kecreations. — His Books. — 
Taste in English Literature. — His Farming. — Extracts from 
Diary. — Conversations with John Quincy Adams. — General St. 
Clair. — Death of Mk. Adams. — French Revolution of 1848. — Cor- 
respondence WITH Mr. Broome. — Mr. Heywood, M. P. — The "Plea 
FOR Harvard." — Death of his Wife. — His Character of her. — 
History of the Boston Athen.eum. — Municipal History of Boston. 
— The Kossuth Banquet. — Purchase of the City Wharf. — Visit 
of Dr. Kane. — Opposes the Union op Boston with Charlestown. — 
His Opinion of Large Cities. — Mr. Adams's Diary, and the Col- 
lege Troubles of 1834. 

TWO or three years before resigning the Presidency, my 
father bought the house in Beacon Hill Place, at the 
corner of Bowdoin Street, in anticipation of this event. It 
stands on the precise spot where Beacon Hill once stood, — the 
highest and the fairest of the three hills which gave to Boston 
its original name of Triraountain. Its site is yet the highest 
point of the peninsula. Here he and his family spent the next 
ten or twelve winters. The house was near those of his son 
and of one of his married daughters, and sufficiently central in 
its position for convenience ; but otherwise neither tlie situation 
nor the house itself was entirely satisfactory to the family, and it 
was gladly exchanged, in 1857, for the one on Park Street, facing 
the Common and the sunset, which he occupied during the rest 
of his life, and where his daughters yet live. He and his books, 
however, were sufficiently well accommodated ; and here he en- 
joyed the first sweets of absolute leisure. He was not entirely 
without outside occupation, however, as he held extensive trusts, 
and managed all his own private affairs without asking the as- 
sistance even of his own sons. But these filled but a small 
portion of his time, the greatest part of which was at his own 



486 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

disposal, free from the importunate demands of public duty. 
His health being unbroken, and all his faculties in the highest 
condition they had ever been in, he might reasonably reckon on 
eight or ten years more of life. He could hardly have anticipated 
that his life would last nineteen years longer. But he set him- 
self as resolutely to work to meet these novel conditions of re- 
pose as he ever had done to encounter the various activities of 
his former life. Three days before his seventy-fourth birthday, 
February 1st, 1846, he began a diary as a part of his scheme for 
keeping off the inroads of old age. He says : — 

" I am soon about to enter my seventy-fifth year. Indolence and 
indifference to labor are the dangers of old men. Manent ingenia 
senibus modo permaneat studmm et indusfria, says Cicero in his De 
Senectute. As one mode of putting to proof this doctrine I undertake 
this diary, an attempt I have often made, and, through engagements 
of an active Hfe, as often have fliiled to execute. I have at length the 
felicity of being my own master, — relieved from the servitude of place 
and office, and have entire liberty to devote my time according to my 
duty to myself and Heaven. 

" Deus nobis hcec otia fecit, — and may my mind never fail to think 
of, and refer to Him with gratitude and love, all the blessings which 
through his bounty I enjoy." 

This diary he continued, with occasional interruptions and 
omissions, up to the end of 1863, six months before his death, 
when he had all but completed his ninety-second year. It fills 
three thick closely written small octavo volumes, and contains 
perhaps as intimate and candid self-communings as diary ever 
did. I shall make frequent extracts from it as 1 tell the story of 
his old age, as the best possible statement of his thoughts, opin- 
ions and feelings. I only regret that the inexorable limits of this 
volume will compel me to give so few of them. On his birthday, 
three days later, he says : — 

'■'■February ^, 1846. — My birthday, on which I enter my seventy- 
fifth year. What an expanse of past time appears in the retrospect, 
crowded with figures once material, now shadowy, yet dear to the 
memory as light to the eyes, with whom I too must soon unite, and 
be forgotten, or be remembered only as it wei'e by mental twilight ! 

" Chlefest and dearest among these i§ my mother, — the truest, the 



MEMOIR OF MAJOR SHAW. 487 

faithiulest, and the most self-sacrificing. No one ever surpassed, few 
ever equalled, her maternal affection. 

' O name forever blessed, forever dear, 
Still breathed in sighs, still uttered with a tear.' " 

He accepted the philosophy of Cicero as to the efficacy of con- 
stant activity in keeping the mental powers in repair during old 
age, and certainly proved its truth by his own example. And he 
used to re-enforce the authority of the great Roman by a more 
homely apophthegm of John Adams's, which he was fond of re- 
peating. When Mr. Adams was in the very last stages of life, 
my father asked him one day how he had managed himself so as 
to keep his faculties entire up to ninety years. To which he re- 
plied, " By constantly employing them. The mind of an old man is 
like an old horse, — if you would get any work out of it, you must 
work it all the time ! " Acting on this principle, my father set 
himself solid tasks of work, requiring painstaking and research, 
and his lighter recreations of literature were of a kind that most 
men would put down in the category of hard study. He began 
early in 1846 his Municipal History of Boston, and, contempora- 
neously with it, the preparation of the Journals of his uncle, the 
husband of his mother's sister, Major Samuel Shaw of the Revo- 
lutionary army, kept during his voyages to Canton, he having 
been the first American to open the trade with China, after peace 
and independence made it practicable, and the first American 
Consul at that port. My father performed this labor of love at 
the request of the late Robert Gould Shaw, Major Shaw's 
nephew, prefixing to the Journals a Memoir of the writer, to 
whose memory he pays this affectionate tribute. 

" It was my happiness in my early youth to enjoy the privilege of 
his acquaintance and correspondence; and now, after the lapse of 
more than fifty years, I can truly say, that, in the course of a long life, 
I have never known an individual of a character more elevated and 
chivalric, acting according to a purer standard of morals, imbued 
with a higher sense of honor, and uniting more intimately the qualities 
of the gentleman, the soldier, the scholar, and the Christian." 

This work appeared in 1847, and is a curious and interesting 
contribution to the materials for American history. The Memoir 



488 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

is largely compiled from Major Shaw's letters to his family, and 
gives the story of the war, through the whole of which he served, 
from the point of view of a subaltern officer. The Journals con- 
tain a lively description of his adventures in China and the East 
Indies generally, of the great commerce between which regions 
and the United States he may be said to have been the pioneer. 

My father's favorite recreation, in the intervals of these serious 
occupations, was reading the ancient classics. He was an excel- 
lent Latin s^cholar, and had always kept up his familiarity with 
the Roman authors, especially Cicero and Horace, with quotations 
from whom his Diary absolutely bristles. On journeys he always 
took a little Horace with him, made expressly for the pocket, — 
the gift of his friend and mine, the late Henry Russell Cleve- 
land, an elegant scholar and most amiable man, too early lost to 
his friends and to society, — and there were few days in which he 
did not hold some converse with the Sabine bard. Many of the 
Odes he knew by heart, and I imagl.ne that there were few that he 
had not so known at one time or another of his life. He wrote 
Latin easily and correctly, and his academic addresses are very 
creditable specimens of modern Latin ity. He was a moderately 
good Greek scholar, as goodness is reckoned in this age and 
country, and he never entirely neglected the Greek exemjilars, 
though he did not turn them over with daily and nightly hand, as 
he might be said to do those of Rome. I sometimes found him 
busy over Thucydides or Demosthenes, but oftener with Xeno- 
phon or Homer. His successor in office, President Walker, — 
certainly a competent authority in the case, — came to the con- 
clusion, after looking into the matter for a specific purpose, that 
he was the best classical scholar of all the Presidents of Harvard 
up to his time. One day when he was President he attended an 
examination of undergraduates in some Greek author. One of 
the young men gave a certain rendering of a particular passage, 
which the presiding professor criticised and corrected. After the 
examination was done and the lecture-room cleared, the President 
remained behind, and, carefully closing the door, came up to the 
professor and told him that his version of the passage was wrong, 
as well as that of the student, and gave him what he himself held 



CLASSICAL liECREATIONS. 489 

to be the true one, — which the learned professor, upon fuller 
consideration and examination, candidly admitted to be the fact. 
His collection of the Latin and Greek classics was almost com- 
plete, though the editions were mostly old-fashioned, and some of 
them obsolete, — good, sturdy, old-world friends, clad in vellum or 
old calf. He had the Olivet edition of Cicero, which Gibbon says 
" may adorn the shelves of the rich," in six large quartos, ed. 1742, 
elegantly bound in the style of a hundred years ago, and that of 
Ernesti, which, according to the same supreme authority, " should 
lie on the tables of the learned "; but his favorite copy for use was 
the beautiful duodecimo edition of the Foulis brothers, of Glasgow, 
in twenty volumes, A. D. 1748, also from the text of Olivet, ex- 
cellently printed by those Scotch Elzevirs. He knew that this 
text had lost the high repute it enjoyed in the last century, but it 
was good enough for him. The volumes bear the marks of 
thorough and frequent reading ; and the one that contains tie 
treatises De Offtcns, De Senectute, and De Amicitia, has had to 
be new backed to save its life. His Lucretius was also from the 
Foulis press, and was the presentation copy from the printers to 
Doctor Franklin. His fine Plutarch in twelve volumes was once 
the property of Talleyrand. But he was no bibliomaniac, and 
the few books he had interesting in the eyes of that frantic gen- 
eration came to him rather by accident than by pains. His lexi- 
cographical apparatus was good ; — in Latin, besides the large 
Ainsworth in two quarto volumes, the yet larger and more per- 
fect Forcellinus in two folios ; — in Greek, besides Schrevelius 
and Hedericus, Suidas, Scapula, and Stephanus. He subscribed, 
more than thirty years before his death, for the splendid Paris 
edition of this last-named greatest of lexicons, and he watched for 
the \AiQT fasciculi with eager interest, as if he had a long life of 
Greek before him. The last fasciculus rejoiced his eyes a very 
short time before he died. 

His taste in English reading was formed according to the 
canons of the last century. Shakespeare and Milton — the lat- 
ter as prose-writer as well as poet — were his constant compan- 
ions in age as in youth. Lord Bacon was often in his hand and 
on his lips, as were the older divines. And — I almost fear 
21 * 



490 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

to state the fact in the ears of this generation — he regarded 
Pope as a great poet, and could draw upon the youthful stores 
of his memory for great numbers of those smooth verses. Indeed, 
he was very much what Margaret Fuller (Madame d'Ossoli) 
described her father to have been, — "a Queen Anne's man," — 
and he had not much relish for the lighter literature of the last 
thirty or forty years. Childe Harold, even, he had never read 
until he was seventy-five years old. His judgment upon it, as 
recorded in his journal, February, 1846, is that which will prob- 
ably be the final sentence of posterity. 

" Childe Harold is evidently a poetic embodiment of the poet's own 
discontent with hfe and the world ; yet it is apparent there is more 
of affectation than reality in this constantly obtruded disgust. 

" His descriptions are splendid, his command of language despotic ; 
but the poem is evidently the work of a diseased mind, and as little 
indicative of a genius to be envied or desired, as the hectic flush of 
fever is of the ruddy bloom of youthful health." 

Historical and biographical works of the day he read with 
avidity, and recorded his opinions of them in his Diary, some of 
which I may extract from time to time. 

The removal from Cambridge restored my father and his fam- 
ily to their country home at Quincy. They returned thither in 
the summer of 1846, for the first time since 1828, and every 
summer has been passed there since then. My father took the 
management of his farm into his own hands again, with as much 
enjoyment as at the time of his first experience, and I believe 
with less loss. He retained this oversight and direc^tion for the 
next ten years, and then relinquished it to his eldest son, who 
also has a country-house on the estate. This occupation gave 
him much wholesome amusement, and no doubt contributed to 
his length of life. During these first years his serious task was 
the preparation of his Municipal History of Boston ; but he found 
time to write, besides, the History of the Boston Athenaeum. He 
had been one of the earliest promoters of that excellent institu- 
tion, — for fourteen years one of its Trustees, and for nine its 
President. When the corner-stone of the present library-build- 



EXTRACTS FROM* HIS DIARY. 491 

ing was laid, in April, 1847, he delivered an address, reciting 
briefly its early history. This, at the request of the Trustees at 
the time, he enlarged to the extent of a volume of some three 
hundred and fifty pages, including short notices of the lives of its 
projectors and founders. This work was published at the be- 
ginning of 1851. 

" Novemher 8. — Rose at four o'clock. In the morning visited J. Q. 
Adaius. I found him apparently unconscious that he had been visited 
by a paralytic affection, yet deeming his case critical ; but self-possessed 
and resigned. One part of his conversation was at once curious and 
gratifying to me. ' I have never said to you, Mr. Quincy, how much 
I approved your resigning your Presidency of Harvard College under 
the circumstances in which you were, — in full health and success, and 
with every Indication of the power of protracted usefulness, — out of 
regai d to your advanced period of life, and solely from a wish to have 
what remained to you of it at your own command, unembarrassed by 
official obligations. I consider that act as the crowning glory of your 
life, and characteristic of great wisdom.' 

" I expressed to him my sense of obligation for the manner in which, 
in 1834-35, when assailed by an internal rebellion, encouraged sys- 
tematically by external discontent, he had come forward in an unqual- 
ified spirit In my defence. I told him I had never ceased to be 
grateful for the aid he afforded me on that occasion. He said he was 
conscious of the service he had rendered me, and had always consid- 
ered the opportunity then afforded him of doing me justice as one of 
the happiest of his life." 

^'■December 1. — Visited J. Q. Adams, who is slowly convalescing, 
— his mind active and self-collected. He spoke of the Observatory at 
Cambridge ; said he had come to Boston prepared to write his report 
on that subject, as chairman of the Committee of the Overseers, and 
on this account regretted this attack of illness, which would preclude 
his fulfiUing that duty ; expressed his great pleasure at the prosperity 
of the Observatory under the joint care of Professor Peirce and IVlr. 
Bond and his son ; considered them all highly quahfied, and possessing 
the right zeal. 

" He spoke of the Observatory at Washington as being erected in 
a mean way, and under false colors, no appropriation having ever 
been made for it by Congress ; and in one of their acts of appropria- 
tion for the navy, they Inserted a clause that no part of it should be 
appHed to an Astronomical Observatory. He regarded the course 



492 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

of Congress on ttis subject as guided by a spirit of malevolence and 
ill-will toward himself. When President of the United States, he had 
expressly recommended the establishment of a National Observatory. 
His interest in it had been frequently manifested, yet everything had 
been done to exclude him from any influence in it; and it had been 
at last established in a way which he denominated mean, from per- 
sonal hostility toward himself 

" December 4. — Visited President J. Q. Adams. He said he did 
not understand some of the grounds taken by Webster at the Phila- 
delphia dinner. What was it to Whigs, if Polk did not pursue the 
policy of Jackson ? By condemning Polk is it his intention to laud 
Jackson ? The wisdom or the principles of Jackson was poor ground 
for Whigs to stand on. I stated to him the retort of the Boston Post 
to Webster's assertion, in Faneuil Hall, that ' Polk had made the war 
upon Mexico, and ought to be impeached for it,' — ' which,' says the 
Post, ' comes very poorly from the mouths of Whigs, — every one of 
whom, except sixteen, voted deliberately that the war was the act of 
Mexico.' * Yes,' replied Adams, ' by that vote the Whigs have taken 
the ground from under themselves. They have nothing to stand 
upon. They have voted the war unavoidable, and have committed 
themselves to support it.' " 

"il/arc/i 21. — Resumed reading Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, 
and abstracted his most important remarks." 

" May 26. — Read, in the ' Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions,' 
an explanation of passages in Homer, Horace, Juvenal, and Josephus. 

" To indicate that the only path to honor was virtue, the Romans 
built a temple to each, and so joined them together that there was no 
access to the former but through the latter." 

" June 6. — In the evening my drawing-room was crowded with my 
children and grandchildren, it being the fiftieth anniversary of Mrs. 
Quincy's and my marriage. A meeting full of the most joyous feel- 
ings, without sorrow of any kind, and the heart oppressed with grati- 
tude to Heaven which language has no adequate power to express. 
Received from each of my children some token of affection, grateful 
and appropriate." 

" September 24. — George W. Turner, of Wheatland, near Charles- 
town, Jefferson County, Virginia, called and introduced himself to 
me, visited my farm, and conversed on agriculture. He breakfasted 
with me, and accompanied me in my carriage to Bc-ston to the 
Mechanics' Fair; and I gave him letters to Cambridge. I was much 
pleased with him. Educated at West Point, after passing six years in 



DEATH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 493 

the army and visiting Europe he has settled as a planter. Intelligent, 
well-informed, modest, and gentlemanly."* 

" October 17. — Passed the evening with President J. Q. Adams. The 
conversation turned on Governor Bowdoin's ' All- Surrounding Orb.' 
He said he had read this paper lately, and thought it had not received 
the justice it merited from the public ; that, considering the state of 
astronomical science of the period, it was quite as respectable as Buf- 
fon's theory of the formation of the world, and as the modern theory 
of a central sun. It must be remembered, that, when Bowdoin wrote, 
Herschel had not made his discovery of the new planet, wuich gave 
new light and impulse to the human mind, — that Bowdoin supported 
his theory by many plausible, and some strong arguments." 

'■'■November 21. — Visited by Elisha Whittlesey of Ohio, formerly 
Member of Congress from that State. Intelligent and well-informed, 
of practical talents and sound judgment. The conversation once 
turned on General St. Clair, the unfortunate commander against the 
Indians in 1794, and who had been equally unfortunate in the army 
of the Revolution. On both occasions no blemish was cast on his 
courage or capacity. 'In 1815,' said Whittlesey, 'I saw St. Clair on 
the top of one of the western spurs of the Alleghany Mountains, living 
in a log hut, and keeping a tavern for a livelihood. He had lost his 
documents of his expenditures when in command of the army by acci- 
dents incident to Indian warlare, and, although he repeatedly sohcited 
Congress for remuneration, his claims were neglected. He had letters 
in his possession, which I have seen, entirely approbatory of his conduct, 
from General Washington. I found him a man of commanding aspect, 
six feet in height, reading in his log hut. He received me as a soldier 
and a gentleman of the old school, supporting his mortifications and 
his poverty with great dignity.' " 

" February 25, 1848. — I have to record the loss of the friend of my 
youth, of my manhood, and of my old age, — John Quincy Adams, — • 
who died at the Capitol, in Washington, on the 23d instant, on the 
spot where his eloquence had often triumphed, and where his worth 
and powers were shown, and are now acknowledged. Death, which 
shuts the gate of envy and opens that of fame, has at length introduced 
him to the rewards of a life of purity, labor, and usefulness spent in 
the service of his country. The language of sorrow and lamentation is 
universal. His memory is embalmed in the hearts of his countrymen. 
No tongue but speaks his praise, — well deserved, but hardly earned 

* This unfortunate gentleman was killed at Harper's Ferry by a shot from the 
engine-house, at the time of John Brown's invasion of Virginia. 



494 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

by a life of unceasing labor and untiring industry. Friend of my life, 
farewell ! I owe you for many marks of favor and kindness. Many 
instances of your aifection and interest for me are recorded in my 
memory, which death alone can obliterate. 

' Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit, 
Nulli flebilior quam mihi.' " 

"March 10. — Attended the reception of the remains of John 
Quincy Adams at Faneuil Hall, by my son, J. Quincy, Jr., as Mayor 
of the city, from the Committee of Congress, consisting of a delegate 
from every State in the Union, who had attended them from Wash- 
ino-ton. In the evening met the committee at my son's house. Mr. 
Tallmadge was particularly interesting to me as the son of one of my 
Congressional friends most dear to my heart. Gave and received 
many reminiscences of his father." 

" March 11. — Attended the solemn and very interesting ceremonies 
at the funeral of my friend, John Quincy Adams, in the presence of 
the delegates of twenty-six States, appointed by the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States to attend his remains to their last rest- 
ing-place, at Quincy. 

" March 2 7. — This evening the news of the Revolution in Paris, and 
the flight of Louis Philippe, is confirmed ; and also the adoption of a 
republic as the government of France. 

" The attempt to establish a repubUc In France will end like all her 
other attempts : first, in the despotism of the many ; next, in that of 
the few ; and, lastly, in that of an individual. France has not one 
element of a republic. She has voted, indeed, that death shall not be 
the penalty for political crimes, — may if prove true ! — but the pas- 
sions and the interest of parties are not to be restrained by votes. 
The experience of the sufferings of the Revolution of 1790 may limit 
the tendency to bloodshed ; but men acting in masses are never made 
the wiser by the experience of others, or by their own." 

Early in 1848 my father had the following letter from his 
old Congre:^sional comrade James M. Broome, formerly Senator 
from Delavpare. His answer, while glowing with the pleasure 
of a revived friendship, yet breathes the authentic forebodings 
of his too prophetic soul in its sadder ending. 

Mr. Broome to Mr. Quincy. 

" Philadelphia, March 20, 1848. 
"My dear Sir: — Every political movement which has tended to 
swallow up the old United States, and to transfer the seat of empire 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. BROOME. 495 

beyond its limits, has brought to my memory and heart your prophetic 
speech in opposition to the admission of new States beyond our na- 
tional boundaries. 

" For a long time I hoped that the moral, political, and pecuniary 
influence of the ' Old United ' would cure the evils under which they 
labored at their union, and that, by becoming more alike, we should be 
better able and more willing to resist invasion in future. 

" This hope is now gone, and 1 fear that we shall be ruled by people 
aliens to our race, and antipodes to everything which may be wise, 
virtuous, and good in our laws and institutions. I know of nothing 
to stop the acquisitions, until we shall fill up the outlines of Doctor 
Thornton's visionary scheme of uniting all America under one gov- 
ernment, to be composed of thirteen confederations like the United 
States, the thirteen Presidents of which shall meet in grand council 
on the Isthmus of Darien, and regulate the general concerns as the 
United States do to the States, &c., and then, to use the Doctor's 
pleasant conceit, the Eagle of Freedom shall stand on the Isthmus, 
with her right wing over the Northern hemisphere, her left wing over 
the Southern, and her tail over the West India Islands, picking the 
eels out of the Pacific Ocean, — unless, indeed, this ill-constructed 
empire shall previously break by its own weight. 

"I did not intend to say more to you now than to ask you if you can 
procure for me a pamphlet copy of your speech, and to assure you and 
Mrs. Quincy of my unabated regard for both ; for I have so much to 
say to you that I cannot trust myself to say anything by letter. 

" The truth is, that Providence, who surrounds us with forgetfulness 
of recent things to make -us let go our hold on life by degrees, bright- 
ens our recollections of the long past when life was full of hope, and 
suffers us to call them up at pleasure, and even to bring before us our 
friends from the grave. 

" With great regard, yours, 

"James M. Broome." 

Mr. Quinct to Mr. Broome. 

" Boston, March 27, 1848. 
"My dear Sir: — I will not attempt to express the pleasure I 
derived when, on opening your favor of the 20th instant, I recognized 
the steady hand and the steadfast mind of one who, more than forty 
years since, impressed himself on my memory and heart by common 
views, common feelings, and a conformity of principles, with a depth 
which time has not obliterated, nor separation nor want of intercourse 



496 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

materially diminislied. He lives, then ; he breathes this vital air ; he 
still enjoys the light of the sun and the sight of this goodly universe ; 
but how, and where ? Does he sit solitary in his advanced years, or 
is he gladdened by the cheerful voices of children and descendants ? 
Had you said more about yourself, your letter would have been thrice 
welcome. The multitude of my departed friends draws those which 
survive with a triple cord nearer the heart. 

'' That I owe this evidence of recollection to the desire of obtaining 
a copy of a speech which I had thought buried in oblivion, ' in the 
family vault of all the Capulets,' was a circumstance not the less flat- 
tering to my pride, nor the less indicative of your friendship; but 
■when, in the kindly warmth of ancient sympathy, you apply to it the 
epithet ' prophetic,' and declare that the events of the passing period 
have brought it ' to your memory and heart,' I feel something of the 
excited exaltation of the Latin poet : — 

' Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.' 

Such are the transitory dreams of a flattered vanity, destined Imme- 
diately to awaken into the consciousness of the utter disregard and 
forgetfulness to which it is destined. 

" I have fbund a copy of that effort, and transmit it, as you request, 
in company with this letter. I have read it to-day for the first time 
since it was pubhshed, in 1811 ; and I rejoice that I see so little to 
regret either in its temper or language, and nothing at all to be 
ashamed of in the argument. Had my view of our constitutional 
duty been then maintained as it ought to have been, and the States 
been called upon individually to sanction the admission of new States 
beyond the ancient limits of the original thirteen, the precedent would 
have been conclusive, and at this day we should not have heard of 
Texas or Mexico as adjuncts to our Union. Congress would not in 
such case have dared to assume, as they have done, the power of 
voting into the Union new States beyond the ancient limits, by its own 
exclusive authority, and thus turned their limited powers into a prac- 
tical despotism. The consequences of these assumptions I could repre- 
sent, — inevitable and not distant; but there is a recklessness in the 
political influences of the period which sets at defiance all the warnings 
of history and experience, spurns all evidence and all argument, and 
paralyzes endeavors by making success hopeless. Let them be pow- 
erful as they may, passion and party spirit will make them 

' Ora, Dei jussu non unquam credita.' 

" For myself, I hear the hollow voice of the rushing waters, fore- 



MR. HEYWOOD, M. P. 49T 

telling the coming storm, — for come it will, — though probably, thank 
God ! neither in your day nor mine. Even now I feel the upheaving 
of the advancing tempest, I see the broken columns of our Union, 
and realize the grinding of their massive materials as they dash 
against each other — not without blood. 

" Pardon the effervescence of an old man's feelings and fears, and 
let me know how time passes with you, and assure yourself always of 
the remembrance and the regard of yours, 

"JOSIAH QUINCY." 

The gentleman named in the next passage from the diary was 
Mr. James Heywood, F. R. S., member for North Lancashire in 
the third and fourth Parliaments of the present reign, and still 
active in all liberal movements in England. 

" Visited by James Heywood, an Engliahman, an Oxonian, and a 
member of Parliament ; also by M. Koeppen, a learned Dane, for several 
years Professor in the University at Athens, Greece. Heywood is 
every inch an Englishman, — in look, manner, and bearing, — highly 
educated, but reserved in society. A reformer in principle, but appar- 
ently wise and practical in his views. He took a high rank at Oxford, 
but having been educated by Dr. Carpenter, and being liberal in his 
views on the subject of religion, he refused to sign the Thirty-nine 
Articles, and was of consequence refused a degree. He said Puseyisra 
was all-prevalent at Oxford, and that, in appointing to professorships, 
it was made a criterion of qualification, to the exclusion of men more 
highly adapted to the offices than those appointed. This had gone so 
far as to create a disposition towards reaction ; and measures were in 
train to induce the crown to interfere by the exertion of its prerogative. 

" Heywood sent for my acceptance the ' History of the English Uni- 
versities ' by Huber, in three volumes, translated from the German at 
his instance and expense, he being the proprietor of the work. It is 
very useful and curious." 

^^ November 1. — Sent a copy of my 'History of Harvard Univer- 
sity ' to him. He accompanied me to Cambridge, and visited the Col- 
leges, the ObseiT'atory, President Everett, and Professor Agassiz." 

In January, 1849, my father wrote a pamphlet entitled " A 
Plea for Harvard," to counteract what he conceived to be the 
beginnings of an attempt to change the name of the University 
from " Harvard College," its ancient corporate name, or " Harvard 
University," a style which the Constitution of Massachusetts per- 



498 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

mitted it to assume, to " The University at Cambridge in New 
England/' — the Triennial Catalogue of 1848 and the smaller 
semiannual Catalogues for that year and the two previous years 
appearing with that name upon their title-pages, and the one for 
1848-49 having a note appended to it justifying the change. 
And President Everett, holding the just opinion that the institu- 
tion had fairly outgrown the proportions of a college, and as- 
sumed those of a university, and thinking that the time had 
come for bestowing upon it its due title, was in the habit of so 
styling it in his official writings- and speeches. In this opinion 
his prede'jeasor did not share, and, fearing that the innovation 
might grow into a custom and a precedent, he made this recla- 
mation against it, which was well received by the graduates and 
the public ; and the ancient landmark was restored, and has re- 
mained unremoved unto this day. 

Thus the first years of my father's green old age passed on, 
filled up with the tranquil and happy occupations of which these 
extracts from his Diary afford examples. The months from INIay 
to November were always spent at Quincy, and those from No- 
vember to May in town. Until the spring of 1850 my mother 
had her average of health, and enjoyed these alternations, and 
the varied pleasures attending them, with all the keenness of her 
impressible and sympathetic nature. She held that the main ele- 
ments of happiness in life were personal independence, a love of 
literature, and a love of the country. These elements, finely 
mixed in her own nature, she encouraged her children to develop 
in themselves by her precept and example. She had an exqui- 
site perception of the beauties of nature and of books, and the 
keenest relish of them, while her manners, at once dignified and 
engaging, and her great gifts of conversation, fitted her to derive 
the highest enjoyment from general society, to which she ever 
lent grace and animation. The sensibility of her organization, 
mental and physical, would have been almost too acute for hap- 
piness, had it not been qualified by the soundest judgment and the 
most infallible good sense. She had been most emphatically the 
helpmate of her husband in all the various activities of his life, 
and she had the happiness to witness and to share the honor and 



DEATH OF fflS WIFE 499 

reverence which accompanied his old age for fi\e years after he 
had entered into its rest. But in the winter and spring of 1850 
the shadows of approaching calamity began to gather over the 
household that had seemed for so many years to be exempt from 
bereavement and sorrow. Her health rapidly failed, and it was 
plain that the healing art could do no more for her than to make 
easier her descent to the grave.. She was removed to Quincy, 
and there, in the scenes she loved best, she gradually passed 
away, with every mitigation that assiduous affection could afford 
her. The sweet influences of nature, and the blessed magic of 
books, helped to charm away the hours of pain and weariness. 
Not long before her death she asked one of my sisters to read 
aloud to her one of Jane Austen's novels, adding, with an ex- 
cusing smile, 

"For so to interpose a little ease, 
Let my fVail thoughts dally with false surmise ! " 

Tn the perfect possession of her mental powers, and knowing ex- 
actly her condition, she awaited patiently and calmly the hour of 
death. She died on the first day of September, 1850, having all 
but completed her seventy-seventh year. Three days afterwards 
the funeral services were performed by the Reverend William 
Parsons Lunt, the minister of the parish, in the presence only of 
her family, excepting Mr. Charles Francis Adams, who claimed 
the privilege of an hereditary friendship, and his wife. My 
father, attended by my brother and my.-elf, proceeded through a 
driving storm of wind and rain to Mount Auburn, where he 
buried her in his own new tomb, wherein was never man yet 
laid. The next record in his diary is nearly two months later. 

" October 30. — During the period intervening since the last entry 
in my diary, my heart has been too full, my loss too great, to yield me 
any pleasure in the retrospect. After an illness commencing in March 
last, on the 1st of September my wife, the companion of my Hfe, one 
who had been for more than fifty-three years its solace, its support, its 
joy, its reliance, was taken from me. It is the will of Heaven. I sub- 
mit, but nature cannot be stayed in vindicating its affections. Life is 
not, it cannot be to me hereafter, what it once was. . . . Though afflicted, 
I have no reason to use any langiiage but that of gratitude, confidence. 



500 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

and trust. But tlie heart turns involuntarily to all it has lost, — the 
truth of her aifections, the faithfulness with which she performed her 
duty under every aspect of life and fortune, the devotedness of her 
mind to all the objects embraced within the female sphere, the pure 
and elevated tone of her intellect, and the exquisite taste, sensibility, 
and delicacy which gave to her a charm and a power which extended 
far beyond the domestic circle, and was recognized by all who had the 
privilege of her companionship. Happy and beloved in life, in her 
illness resigned, acquiescent, anxious only to assuage the grief of those 
around her, her thoughts seemed concentrated upon one purpose, — that 
of preserving her self-possession. Not a word of complaint or anxiety 
escaped her. In the last week of her life she was engaged in reading 
works of taste and literature, with the same delight and the same criti- 
cal acumen for which she was distinguished ; and she would not allow 
a word of sorrow or regret to be uttered on her account. Once, 
indeed, she heard, as I stood by her bedside, an involuntary sigh escape 
me. Turning toward me with a look of inexpressible tenderness, she 
exclaimed, ' O, don't sigh I there is nothing to sigh about ! ' In this 
tone her spirit maintained itself to the last, departing apparently with 
no more anxiety about the future than if she was about, at the proper 
season, to quit her residence in the country for that in the city. It is 
impossible for any death to be in manner more dignified, or in mode 
more, desirable." 

My father soon sought the relief from the presence of this great 
grief which study and occupation could afford. He busied him- 
self with finishing his History of the Boston Athenaeum, which 
had been delayed, as he says himself, by circumstances for which 
he was not responsible, adding : — 

" I am well repaid for all the difficulties and trouble attending it by 
the satisfaction I feel at having been instrumental in preserving the 
memory and services of some of my early friends, and by having done 
justice, though feebly, to their merits." 

This work was very well received by the proprietors of the 
Athenaeum and the general public ; and, besides recording the 
services and characters of several excellent and accomplished 
men whose memories were fading out of the minds of this gen- 
eration, it brought the importance of maintaining such an institu- 
tion distinctly to the attention of the community. Two or three 
years later he came to the rescue of the -Athenaeum from a prop- 



MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF BOSTON. 501 

osition to make it the nucleus of a public library for the use of 
the citizens at large. My father thought this would be an un- 
warrantable deviation from the original design of the institution, 
and inexpedient, besides, in many other points of view. His 
pamphlets had the effect of defeating the plan, and it were not, 
perhaps, too much to claim for him that they and his History ma- 
terially helped to revive the public interest in the Athenaeum, 
and to promote the movement which soon afterwards placed it on 
its present enlarged and permanent foundation. 

'■'•November 14, 1850. — In the evening read Thucydides. His 
declaration that his work was intended to be KTrjiut is del, an everlast- 
ing possession, for mankind, indicates that he possessed the spirit which 
rendered his work what it is, — immortal." 

" December 28. — From half past eight o'clock till eleven engaged in 
writing a report on the Observatory, then rode to Quincy. Returned 
at two in the afternoon on business. Read four Odes of Horace, one of 
Burns ; then on business of the farm till eight o'clock ; visited Jonathan 
Phillips till nine ; the rest of the evening at my son's house. 

' Multa petentibus 
Desunt multa; bene est, cui Deus obtulit 
Parca, quod satis est, manu.' " 

" December 29. — A violent snow-storm prevented my going to 
church. Continued the report on the Observatory ; also, read one of 
the odes of Burns. The state of the weather gave effect to one of his 
happy effusions : — 

' O Nature ! all thy shows and forms 
To feeling, pensive hearts have charms ; 
Whether the summer kindly warms 

With life and light, 
Or winter howls, in gusty storms, 
The long, dark night.' " 

In 1852 he published his "Municipal History of the Town and 
City of Boston from its Foundation to the Year 1830," being 
the first two centuries of its existence. It is chiefly devoted to 
the later history of Boston, after it became a city, under his own 
administration and that of Mr. Phillips ; but it tells all that there 
is to tell of the previous story of the town, with curious illustra- 
tions of the state of society and the customs of the place in its 



502 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

early days, drawn from its records and other original sources. 
It is compactly and tersely written, and must always hold a high 
rank among the local histories which have multiplied so much 
of late years. This work finished, and before it was through 
the press, he began upon his Memoir of John Quincy Adams, 
on the ground that he found regular occupation necessary to his 
happiness. He had been appointed in the year 1848, by the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, to write a sketch of the life of 
Mr. Adams, to be published with their Transactions. He pro- 
posed to himself at first to do no more than this ; but the subject 
grew upon him and gave him occupation and amusement for the 
next six years, and at last took upon itself the dimensions of a 
volume. 

Diary. " May 1. — Being Invited to the legislative banquet given 
to Kossuth at Faneuil Hall, I deemed it my duty to attend. I had the 
gratification to find that, though long separated from such scenes, my 
presence was not disregarded. As I took my seat I was greeted by 
the whole assembly. My address to Kossuth, though spontaneous, was 
well received by him and by the audience. Such tributes it is no 
shame to any man to acknowledge to be gratifying, particularly when 
accompanied by a consciousness that they have been the result neither 
of subserviency to the many, nor abandonment of the interests of the 
few." 

All who were present on that most interesting occasion must 
remember the graceful meeting of the old American statesman 
and the young Hungarian hero, the fitness of their words, and the 
enthusiasm of the company. 

In the autumn of 1852 a transaction occurred, my father's 
part in which is too characteristic to be omitted \n any account 
of his life. When he was carrying out the operations which re- 
sulted in the building of the market-house, he had made a wharf, 
called the City Wharf, opposite its eastern end. This wharf Le 
considered to be of particular importance to the rest of the wliarf 
property on the harbor, and he held that the city should always 
keep the control of it. The lease of this wharf expired in Sep- 
tember, 1852, and the city government proposed selling it by 
auction to the highest bidder. As soon as my father saw the 



PUECHASE OF THE CITY WHARF. 503 

advertisement of the sale, he wrote a letter to the Mayor remon- 
strating against this action, and giving his reasons why it should 
not be taken. Not satisfied with this, he immediately followed 
up his letter by a personal interview with that magistrate, in 
which he urged his objections with fresh earnestness. The Mayor 
seemed impressed with his arguments, and submitted his letter 
to the committee having the matter in charge. The sale, how- 
ever, went forward, and on the day appointed my father went to 
Faneuil Hall to witness it as a spectator. When the bidding 
ceased at the point of four hundred thousand dollars, he was 
moved to take a part in the competition, "irresistibly impelled," 
as he says in his Diary, " by an influence of the origin of which 
I was wholly unconscious." It is not impossible, however, that 
the origin of this irresistible influence was the knowledge he had, 
above all other men present, of the value of the property. It was 
finally knocked down to him at four hundred and eleven thousand 
dollars ; and the announcement was received by the numerous 
company of competitors and spectators with loud cheers. He 
stated to them that he had not acted as a speculator, but merely for 
the purpose of giving the city government an opportunity to re- 
consider their action in the premises. Should they refuse to do so, 
he was very willing to take the risk of the purchase. This an- 
nouncement was received with renewed cheering. Accordingly 
he wrote to the Mayor offering to relinquish his purchase if the 
city government would bind itself and its successors not to part 
with the property for the space of twenty years. This offer being 
refused, he kept the estate, and its improvement and management 
gave him occupation for the rest of his life. 

Diary. '■'•February 15, 1853. — Visited Cambridge with Dr. Kane, 
a surgeon in the navy, of great enterprise and apparently indomitable 
will. As surgeon he attended the American expedition to the North 
Pole in search of Sir John Franklin, and is now appointed to com- 
mand a second expedition to the Arctic Circle. He is confident that 
there is an open sea under the Pole, in which he is of opinion Frank- 
lin may be imprisoned, and is determined, if possible, to make the fact 
certain. From character, spirit, practical skill, and scientific attain 
ment, he seems well adapted to the enterprise." 



604 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

^'■February 7, 1854. — Read Webster's reply to Hajme, and Park- 
man's History of Pontiac's Conspiracy, a work of great merit, written 
with much apparent labor and research, and graphic descriptions of 
absorbing interest. The characteristic traits of Indian life, motives, 
and feelings are sketched with a hand that well desei'ves to be called 
masterly. I have seldom read a work with more entire approbation." 

" March 29. — Some friend has sent me a sermon on old age by 
Theodore Parker. It has the vivacity and generalization of his style. 
Instead of a sermon, it consists of a series of fancy sketches, pencillings 
by the way. Some things are represented according to nature, some 
are imaginary, others mistaken. So far as my experience goes at the 
age of eighty-two, I cannot agree that it is the characteristic of old 
age to lose the love of new things and new persons, and think the old 
to be better. On the contrary, almost everything at the present time 
seems to me to be better ; and I do not limit this feeling and opinion to 
physical improvements and accommodations, but extend it to morals 
and religion. It is true, that with increasing population crime has 
increased, but with it a counteracting spirit is in action aiming to 
repress these consequences, accompanying which is an enlarged sense 
of public duty, willing to make sacrifices of time, labor, and money 
for the general improvement and comfort of our race. And as to per- 
sons, although love of the lost gradually fades away with time, and 
exists more in memory than feeling, yet the love of the friends who 
remain to us is increased in intensity by the bereavements to which, in 
the course of nature, age is compelled to submit." 

^^ March 30. — What Parker says of pains and infirmities I do not 
realize. This may be the effect of original constitution, having 
always been favored with health, and somewhat to what he calls ' the 
religion of the flesh,' which is unquestionably a means of preventing 

its infirmities I can truly respond to his anecdote of Dr. Priestley, 

who, in his eightieth year, preached that ' old age was the happiest 
time of life.' I would only modify this language by the acknowledg- 
ment that all my life has been as happy, and more happy than I have 
deserved, and the experience of the present is in unison with the past." 

In the autumn of 1854 an attempt was made to effect a union 
of the cities of Boston and Charlestown. This proposition my 
father resisted to the best of his ability. He wrote a strong 
pamphlet on the subject, of which he distributed a large edition 
at bis own expense. Whatever effect it had was on the citizens 
of Charlestown, for a large majority of those of Boston who \oted 



MR. J. Q. ADAMS'S DIARY. 505 

on the question — only about a third of the legal voters — went 
for the union. The vote of Charlestown defeated the scheme. 
His principal reasons for his opposition are thus written down in 
his Diary, and perhaps it may not be amiss to put them on record 
here. "What he deprecates most is 

" A change in the wise policy of our ancestors, founded upon the 
division of our population into small municipalities, and introducing 
gigantic cities, which, by removing the interests of the community 
fi-om the inspection of the inhabitants, introduces among them an 
indifference to public affairs, and opens temptations to the selfish, the 
unprincipled, and intriguing to get the management of city affairs, 
resulting in making all the concerns of a city the objects of the plun- 
der of wretched adventurers without patriotism, guided by no other 
motives than private gain or pohtical advancement." 

Nearly a year later he thus speaks of the revelations of Mr. J. 
Q. Adams's Diary, which Mr. Charles F. Adams had lent to 
him for consultation when writing Mr. Adams's life, as to a mat- 
ter of personal interest to himself. 

^'■November 3, 1855. — The morning chiefly employed in copying 
from J. Q. Adams's Diary a graphic detail of the proceedings of the 
Board of Overseei-s of Harvard CoUege, and of the committee ap- 
pointed by them on my report, as President of that institution, on the 
disturbances in that College in 1834. The whole detail is very curious 
and interesting, exhibiting the base passions which endeavored to im- 
pHcate me, and the spirited defence made by Mr. Adams in my behalf 
A number of political rivals thought they had me at disadvantage, 
and would probably have given me great trouble had not Adams 
had the courage and the friendship to interpose in my behalf. I have 
always appreciated his conduct on that occasion, and cherished for him 
a grateful heart. But until I had the reading of this diary, I never 
understood the malignity with which I was assailed, nor the laborious 
zeal with which I was defended by Mr. Adams. I always knew that 
those troubles were fanned from without. If not enkindled there. A 
newspaper of the city was devoted to the discontented youth, and I 
always beheved that a political rival who had applied to be appointed 
President of the seminary before I was chosen, as was well known, was 
the most active in encouraging these malcontents. The diary of Mr. 
Adams explains the motions and motives of this vermicular enemy. 

22 



606 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" I was gratified to find the course of the College was maintained by 
such men as Benjamin Pickman, John Wells, Richard Sullivan, Lem- 
uel Shaw, James Savage, Dr. Lowell, and Dr. Francis. 

" The particulars of that debate, through the lapse of time, have 
been obliterated from my memory, which this report of Mr. Adama 
has revived in my mind, bringing with it a renewed sense of my obli- 
gation for the spirit and laborious zeal with which he defended me and 
the government of the College." 



HIS INTEREST IN POLITICS. 507 



CHAPTER XX. 

1854-1863. 

Hi8 Interest in Politics. — Abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Law. 

— Letter from Washington Irving. — The Assault on Mr. Sumner. 

— Letter to Mr. Hoar. — Address at Quincy. — Letters from Pro- 
fessor Silliman and Mr. Sumner. — Letter to Mrs. Waterston. — 
Fremont Campaign. — Writes " Whig Policy Analyzed." — Recep- 
tion of Mr. Sumner. — Election of Mr. Burlingame. — Defeat of 
Fremont. — Removal to Park Street. — Visit from Richard Cob- 
den. — Letter from Mr. Motley. — From Lord Lyndhurst. — Elec- 
tion OF Lincoln. — Breaking out of the Rebellion. — His Faith in 
the Result. — Letter to Captain Quincy. — Meets with a disa- 
bling Accident. — His Personal Habits. — Bereavements. — Relig- 
ious Opinions. — Address to the Union Club. — Death of Colonel 
Shaw. — Letter to President Lincoln. — Correspondence with 
Professor Cairnes. — Conclusion of his Diary. 

IT must not be supposed that Mr. Quincy was unobservant of 
the portentous events which made up the history of the years 
since he resigned the Presidency of the University, or indifferent 
to them. In the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, and 
the incorporation of the territory wrested from that repubhc with 
our own, he saw the literal fulfilment of his prophecies of near 
half a century before. The compromises of 1850, and especially 
the Fugitive Slave Bill, he regarded as inevitable consequences of 
the dominion which the Slave Power had obtained over the pol- 
icy and destinies of the country. All these calamities, and the yei, 
greater ones of which they might be the precursors, he considered 
the logical results of the coup d'etat of 1803, by which Mr. Jeffer- 
son established the precedent that foreign territory might be made 
an integral portion of the domain of the United States by the 
mere act of Congress, without first obtaining the consent of the 
people in their sovereign capacity. During the years of his 
headship of the University he had abstained, as a matter of aca- 
demical decorum, from taking any active part in the politics of 



508 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the day. And now, although they had assumed a much more 
menacing aspect than ever before, he still felt a strong reluctance 
to mingling again with them, natural enough in view of his age 
and long retirement from the pohtical arena. Still he could not 
see the battle raging without an instinctive desire to be in the 
■ midst of it again. The recollection of the certaminis gaudia, — 
" the rapture of the strife," — which he had felt so keenly in the 
old time, might well invite him to engage in a contest which was 
but the continuation of the fierce struggles of his prime. The 
enforcement in Boston of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1851, and 
yet more in 1854, stirred his spirit deeply. It appears from 
his Diary that he intended attacking that infamous enactment 
through the press in 1851, and that he had bestowed much pains 
in preparation for it ; but, for some reason which does not appear, 
it did not see the light. On the occasion of the rendition of An- 
thony Burns, on the 2d of -June, 1854, the blackest day thai 
Boston had seen since her history began, he fled from the spec- 
tacle of that great disgrace. He says in his Diary : — 

" June 2. — Left Boston as early as possible to avoid the painful 
scene of a human creature restored to bondage by the arm of the law. 
The public sentiment so averse to the measure, that a body of troops, 
and cannon loaded, were deemed requisite to carry the law into ex- 
ecution. Such was the opposition manifested. Events indicative of 
discontents, which are at no distant period, if not removed, to be the 
source of irretrievable discords and dangers to the continuance of our 
Union." 

In the winter of 1854, indeed, he attended the public meeting 
held in Faneuil Hall on the occasion of the Repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise, to join in the general protest against that 
infamy. Though he had declined acting as one of the Vice- 
Presidents of the meeting, he was spied out by the crowd, who 
demanded him so loudly and earnestly that he had to comply, 
and, to use his own words, " addressed them briefly, though 
wholly unprepared. It resulted in my own conviction that my 
mind was yet at ray command, and not without satisfaction to 
others, judging from the fact that it has exposed me to that 
^pessimum genus inimicorum, laudentes.' " 



ABHORRENCE OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 509 

The next August he was invited to attend the Whig State Con- 
vention, and went accordingly, though he had never accounted 
himself as belonging to the Whig party. Being called upon to 
speak, he took the opportunity to express his opinions very dis- 
tinctly as to the recent horror enacted in Boston, of which he 
gave a briefly energetic recital. 

" The obligation," he said, " incumbent upon the Free States to de- 
liver up fugitive slaves, must be obliterated from the Constitution at 

every hazard We have seen our Court-House in chains, two 

batt-alions of dragoons, eight companies of artillery, twelve companies 
of infantry, the whole constabulary force of the city police, the entire 
disposable marines of the United States, with artillery loaded for ac- 
tion, all marching in support of a Praetorian band, consisting of one 
hundred and twenty select friends and associates of the United States 
Marshal, with loaded pistols and drawn swords, — and all this mllltarj' 
preparation and array, for what purpose ? To escort and conduct a 
poor, trembling slave from a Boston Court-House to the fetters and 
lash of his master! 

" Tills display of military force the Mayor of this city officially de- 
clared to be necessary on the occasion. Nay, more, at a pubUc festi- 
val he openly took to himself the glory of this display, declaring that 
by it hfe and hberty had been saved, and the honor of Boston vindi- 
cated ! 

" This scene, thus awftil, thus detestable, every inhabitant of this 
metropolis, nay, more, every Inhabitant of this Commonwealth, may 
be compelled again to witness, at any and every day of the year, at 
the will or the whim of the meanest and basest slaveholder of the 
South." 

He significantly added, that the obliteration of the obligation 
to return fugitive slaves was as much for the benefit of the slave- 
holders as of the people of the Free States. On their own 
ground, of course, that slavery was an institution that should be 
preserved. And the result has proved the truth of his assertion. 
Nothing, perhaps, prepared the way to the sudden destruction of 
the slave system more effectually than the Fugitive Slave Law. 
It helped to educate the Northern mind thoroughly up to that 
point. 

His speech was well received by the body of the Convention, 



610 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

the greater part of whom, doubtless, soon made part of the new 
Republican party, though I apprehend it was not altogether well 
pleasing in the ears of the leaders of the moribund Whig organi- 
zation, who yet hoped against hope for slaveholding help in their 
extremity. 

As time passed on, and the resolute purpose of the slaveholders 
to make slavery coextensive with the Union, by overriding the 
common law, declared and enforced in many of the Free States 
by statute, making every slave a freeman who was brought within 
their frontiers through the act of the master, and by the forcible 
intrusion of slavery into reluctant Territories by the national 
arm, became more and more apparent, the resistance of the true 
patriots of the Free States to these aggressions on their own 
rights, as well as on those of the negroes, became more and more 
pronounced. In these feelings, and in every disposition to defeat 
designs so fatal to liberty, Mr. Quincy shared, and soon made 
himself prominent in the first great struggle between slavery and 
freedom for ascendancy in the country, in which John C. Fre- 
mont was selected as the champion of the North. The outrages 
in Kansas, and the cowardly attempt upon the life of Senator 
Sumner in his place by one slaveholder with a bludgeon, sup- 
ported by another with a revolver, aroused his indignation, in 
common with that of all honest men, and led him to unite with 
them in an attem.pt to limit, if it could not be destroyed, the sys- 
tem thus fruitful of treachery, cruelty, and crime. 

But before entering upon this passage of his life I must find 
room for the following cordial letter from Washington Irving, 
and for a few extracts from his Diary. 

Mr. Irving to Mr. Quincy. 

"SoKNTSiDB, March 17, 1856. 
"My dear Sir: — I must apologize to you for delaying so long to 
answer your very kind letter, and to acknowledge with many thanks 
the receipt of the copy of the Life of Major Shaw. I ft'cl much inter- 
ested by the account you gave of the late Colonel Tallmadge, and of 
your intimacy with him when you were in Congress together. Those 
were gallant days when you and he served together in Congress. It 
was a great intellectual treat to attend in the galleries. There were 



THE ASSAULT ON MR. SUMNER. 511 

noble champions in both parties, and a wonderful array of talent. I 
had the pleasure of hearing you speak repeatedly, and I recollect 
being struck at one time with the noble scorn with which you spoke 
of the miserable party hacks, 'the earth-spirited animals' trudging 
along in the traces, in the hope of receiving their allotted portion of 
provender. I am recalling vaguely a noble invective which you may 
have forgotten. Of the high-spirited, high-minded orators of that day 
I beheve you are almost the only one left. But I feel it an honor to 
address one of the elite of those intellectual combatants. Believe me, 
with the highest respect, &c., yours very truly, 

" Washington Irving." 

"Jwwe 23. — Tliis morning I accompanied on board the Cambria 
my sons-in-law and my daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Greene,. and Mr. and 
Mrs. Waterston, and their daughter, Helen Waterston. They sailed 
for Liverpool, intending to spend a year in Europe. Heaven grant 
them a safe voyage, a happy excui-sion, and a return in health, whether 
I am permitted to be here to receive them or not ! Very precious are 
they to my heart, by the ties of nature and society, but much more so 
by a uniformity of affectionate intercourse. I can most truly, in the 
language of the poet, address the Cambria, 

' Rcddas incolumem precor, 
Et serves animas dimidium meae.' " 

In the interval between this entry and the next extract the 
assault on Mr. Sumner was perpetrated. The letter my father 
speaks of was one addressed to Mr. E. Rockwood Hoar, now 
one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in 
reply to one inviting him to attend the annual Unitarian festival. 
This invitation he declined for the following reason. 

" My mind is in no state to receive pleasure from social scenes and 
friendly intercourse. I can think or speak of nothing but of the out- 
rages of slaveholders in Kansas, and the outrages of slaveholders at 
Washington, — outrages which if not met in the spirit of our fathers 
of the Revolution (and I see no sign that they will be), our liberties 
are but a name, and our Union will prove a curse." 

After recounting the more recent villanies, — the Fugitive 
Slave Law, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the invasion 
of Kansas, and the help given it by the government, and, finally, 
the cowardly assault on Mr. Sumner, — he thus proceeds : — 



512 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" In my opinion, it is time to speak on tlie house-top what every man 
who is worthy of the name of fi-eeman utters in his chamber and feels 
in his heart. By a series of corruption, intrigue, and cunning, bribing 
the high by appointments of state, the low by the hope of emolu- 
ments, — playing between the parties of the Free States, and counter- 
acting one by the other, — by flattering the vain, paying the mean, and 
rewarding the subservient, — the slaveholders have, in the course of 
fifty years, usurped the whole constitutional powers of the Union, have 
possessed themselves of the executive chair, of the halls of Congress, 
of the national courts of justice, and of the military arm, leaving 
nothing of hope to the spirit of freedom in the Free States but public 
speech in the Legislature and the ballot-box. The one, a slaveholder's 
mob is crushing in Kansas ; the other, a deputation from the slavehold- 
ers of the House of Representatives have attempted to crush in the 
Senate by a slaveholder's bludgeon. 

" My heart is too fuU. If I should pour forth aU that is in it, both 
paper and time would fail me. Truly, I am yours, 

"JosiAH QuiNCY. 

" QoiNcr, May 27, 1856." 

" May 28. — My letter to Hoar published by him, and well received 
by the public, and large editions called for. My thoughts are so ab- 
sorbed by the events of the day that I can attend to nothing else." 

This letter to Mr. Hoar was followed almost immediately by 
an address delivered in Quincy, at the request of its inhabitants, 
on " The Nature and Power of the Slave States, and the Duties 
of the Free States." In this address he showed, with great 
clearness and energy, the effect of slavery upon the character of 
the slaveholders, the origin and growth of the supremacy of 
slavery in the councils of the nation, and the duties of the North 
in that hour of danger. He said, on this point : — 

" The .Free States are then, undeniably, at this day, in that very 
state of things in which the warning voice of Washington declared 
' RESISTANCE TO BE THEIR DUTY.' During more than forty years, 
the spirit of a continued series of encroachments has established over 
them the worst of all possible despotisms, — that of slaveholders." 

And he thus concludes the whole matter : — 

" At the coming election, I cannot doubt that the Free States, in 
which the greatest proportion of practical wisdom, active talent, and 



LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 51o 

efficient virtue exists, will take possession of this government ; restore 
to the Constitution the proportions of power established by Washing- 
ton ; reinstate, in full force, that barrier against the extension of 
slavery called ' the Missouri Compromise ' ; make Kansas a Free 
State ; and put an end forever to the addition of any more Slave 
States to this Union ; — duties to be fulfilled at every hazard, even of 
the dissolution of the Union itself. If this Union is destined to break 
to pieces, it cannot fall in a more glorious struggle than in the en- 
deavor to limit the farther extension of slavery', — that disgrace of 
our nation, and curse of our race." 

This address was very widely circulated, and doubtless, to- 
g ther with his previous letter to Mr. Hoar, had an appreciable 
eflect in the arousing and directing the spirit of the Northern 
States in the great Presidential campaign then about to open. 
He received many letters of grateful acknowledgment of this 
timely service from different sections of the country. One or 
two of these will not be out of place here. That of Professor 
Silliman of New Haven, one whom all men delighted to honor, 
shows that there was at least one other octogenarian in whom 
the call of the crisis renewed the spirit and energies of youth. 

Professor Silliman to Mr. Quincy. 

"New Haven., Conn., August 6, 1856. 

" Dear Sir : — Be pleased to accept my best thanks for your pow- 
erful, searching, and truthful address delivered at Quincy. Years 
sit so lightly on your head, that even your handwriting retains the 
characteristic roundness and fulness of bygone days, and the clear- 
ness and vigor of thought and glow of patriotism have, suffered no 
eclipse, and now shine as they shone half a century ago. 

"Mere coraphment I avoid from taste, and abjure from principle, 
but both taste and principle unite in the approbation this efibrt elicits 
from me. 

" The development which you, sir, have made in giving the history 
of the rise and progress of the slave oligarchy is confirmed by my own 
distinct recollections ; for although never engaged in political life, I 
have ever been a diligent student and observer of our public affairs, 
and I well remember the Louisiana purchase, and the fearful antici- 
pations with which It was contemplated at the time by our wisest and 
best men. 

22* GO 



614 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" You remember, no doubt, our brilliant Senator, Uriah Tracy, 
•whose wit, often sparkling and brilliant, was suppressed under the 
influence of his anxious forebodings, when, in conversation ivith my- 
self, he predicted some of the results which you have so powerfully 
portrayed. 

" I could wish that your address were stereotyped and thrown out 
broadcast, by thousands, over the breadth and length of the land, — 
the South not excepted, — were it indeed possible that it should find 
admission in those regions, where truth on the subject of slavery is 
excluded with Neapolitan rigor. 

" Without claiming a response to this voluntary expression of feel- 
irg, 1 remain, with the greatest respect, your obliged friend, 

"B. SiLLIMAN." 

These letters from Mr. Sumner, the first written when he was 
seeking health among the mountains of Pennsylvania, after the 
murderous attempt upon his life, and the second from Philadel- 
phia, need no introduction. They breathe the reverence and 
love which he always showed towards my father, who returned 
his regard with all but paternal aiFection. 

Mr. Sumner to Mr. Quincy. 

" Cbbsson, Alleghany Mountains, Penn., August 12, 1856. 

"My dear Sir: — I have throbbed with gratitude as from time to 
time I read your words, — fii-st the letter, and now your address. 
The letter gave a just tone to public sentiment, and now the address 
touches to the quick the character of slaveholding civilization, and 
also the extent to which it has usurped the government, — the very 
theme which I have intended to discuss from my seat at this session, 
were I permitted to reach it. 

"Among all your productions, marked always by rare Aigor and 

eloquence, and elevated by noble sentiment, I think this last may 

proudly take its place as inferior to none. They speak of old age as 

second childhood. In you it is second youth. Made nova virlute, &c. 

Believe me, my dear and ancient friend, with much regard, sincerely 

yours, 

" Charles Sumner. 

"P. S. — My health is slowly re-establishing Itself in this mountain 
air, but it is still uncertain when I shall be able to make any intellect- 
ual effort." 



FREMONT CAMPAIGN. 515 

The Same to the Same. 

'' Philadelphia, September 7, 1856. 

* My dear Sir : — I am grateful for your letter and all its sympa- 
thy ; but I am more grateful still for what you are doing to sway the 
public mind. You, indeed, are our good Cid Campeador, and I hope 
that you will not sheathe for a moment the brightness of your faloliion. 
Another such blow as that on Mr. Choate will complete the work in 
Massachusetts. 

" The tyranny of this Administration is maddening. As I read to- 
day the instructions with regard to Kansas, I felt that all old wrongs 
are made decent by the shameless atrocity of these proceedings. 

" I have left the mountain and reached this place. I am now quite 
comfortable, but I am disheartened by finding how little I can bear. 
I walked a mile slowly yesterday, and then, as a penalty and token of 
my feebleness, was doomed to lie awake all night, hearing every clock 
strike till daybreak. This is hard ; for it seems to postpone the period 
when I can take part in our contest. But why should I repine ? You 
are in the field, to supply all our omissions. 

" Ever sincerely yours, 

" Charles Sumner." 

In the interval between these letters of Mr. Sumner, Mr. 
Quincy wrote a letter occasioned by one addressed by Mr. Rufus 
Choate to the Whig State Committee of Maine, in which that 
florid orator endeavored to frighten the Maine Whigs from their 
propriety, by setting forth the horrors sure to ensue upon the 
election of Colonel Fremont. These terrors Mr. Quincy treated 
in the strain of lively ridicule, which was the best antidote for 
them. It was one of his happiest effusions, and no one would 
suspect, from its wit or its logic, that it proceeded from an octo- 
genarian. It had an immense circulation, especially in Maine, 
and was believed to have had a prevailing influence in carrying 
that State for Fremont. To this fact I have had very recently 
the authentic testimony of ex-Governor Israel W^ashburn, of 
Maine, whose services to the country in the early days of the Re- 
bellion are freshly and gratefully remembered by us all, who vol- 
untarily assured me, in the strongest terms, of the immense sup- 
port which the Republican party in Maine at that time derived 
from the weight of my father's name, character, and words. 



51C LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

The domestic letter which follows will vary the political se- 
riousness which characterizes the mass of my father's utterances 
at this period. 

To Mr. A.ND Mrs. K C. Waterston. 

" QniNCY, Mass., August 3, 1856 

"My dear Daughter and SoN-m-LAw: — My letter must be 
a joint concern, for I have neither time nor head to make two of it. 
Confidentially, I have been these several weeks past so absorbed by 
thoughts relative to the state of this country, that I can neither think, 
speak, nor dream of anything else. The truth is, when a man gets to 
that age when ' the grasshopper is a burden,' whatever gets under the 
legs and wings of the insect is embarrassed, and acts only In one direc- 
tion, and confines itself to one subject, as the limbs of that animal 
permit. I hope soon to throw oif that burden, and chirp again in my 
old age, as the grasshopper aforesaid does in the spring. In the mean 
time I shall send you, in company with this letter, an evidence that 
my brain has not been wholly rendered effete under the influence of 
that animal, but that it has some activity yet, and that there is a rea- 
sonable hope that intellectual vitality may for a time, at least, be 
granted to me. As to things abroad, your sisters and nephews and 
brothers and brothers' wives must keep you up to the times ; my Ufe 
has been chiefly in my study. I know only that it has been a most 
glorious season for haying, both as it respects quantity and time for 
harvesting. My farmer assures me he has put in nearly one hun- 
dred tons of English hay, and more to be got In yet. My corn Is 
flourishing, my barley excellent, rye abundant, and my general pro- 
ducts so great, that for aught I know I must pull down my barns and 
build greater. This, however, I will not do, lest I should be tempted, 
like the man in the Scripture, to say things which might lead to con- 
sequences I would avoid ; so I have determined to stack all my surplus 
out, and escape the speechifying temptation, and so also escape the 
penalty. 

" I know not if I ought to enter on more grave and serious topics, 
but I will, however, gratify your thoughtful propensities by telling you 
confidentially that Tiger Is as grave as a judge, Fritz has taken up his 
old lodgings with Joe and Sam, at the other house, and Bruno catches 
rats In the morning, and comes In every evening to be fondled and 
sleep, imtil he goes to take up his night's lodging with Tiger. 

" As to the domestic state, it Is pretty much as you left it And 

all the daughters are as good as good can be, — and, sometimes I 



WRITES "WHIG POLICY ANALYZED." 517 

think, a little better. As to the other house, my son and his lady, 
Mary, and the two young men, are all as happy as possible in this 
•world of care and uncertainty. Mary sings like an Italian nightin- 
gale, — so that I can hear her high notes here in my dwelling-place, — 

not much to my edification, but very much to my astonishment 

" Now "if this is not a good letter, I know not what is. It wants to 
be perfect only the assurance that I am ever your affectionate father 
and father-in-law, 

"JOSIAH QUINCY." 

As the time of the election approached, Mr. Quincy shared in 
the animated excitement and intense anxiety which went before 
it. There were no apprehensions as to the Presidential vote of 
Massachusetts. That Fremont would carry the State by a ma- 
jority of many thousands was an absolute certainty. The chief 
interest of the election in Massachusetts, and which was largely 
shared everywhere, North and South, lay in the contest between 
Mr. Anson Burlingame and Mr. William Appleton for the rep- 
resentation in Congress of one of the Boston Districts. The 
former had just made himself conspicuous in Congress by a 
speech, which Mr. Quincy characterized, in a pamphlet of which 
I shall speak presently, as '* timely, just, appropriate, and honora- 
ble; and which if the people of Massachusetts fail to support, 
they will thus far, in my judgment, be disgraced in all time, pres- 
ent and future." Mr. Appleton was the candidate of the Whig 
party, which, in the same pamphlet, Mr. Quincy characterizes as 
the embodiment of the cotton-growing and cotton-spinning inter- 
ests, the identity of which he had demonstrated, and under the 
influence of which "Massachusetts had been led into a course of 
policy which has made her the reproach and ridicule of slave- 
holders, while she has been a pander to their power and contrib- 
uted to their success." It was in particular contemplation of this 
election that he wrote this pamphlet, entitled, " Whig Policy 
Analyzed and Illustrated," in which he traced the decline and 
fall of that once powerful party to its subserviency to the slave- 
holders, and its futile endeavors to obtain their aid for the eleva- 
tion of Mr. Webster to the Presidency and the adoption of the 
policy of protection to manufactures. He maintained tiiat it was 



518 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

to their unqualified support of the later course of Mr. "Webster, 
and especially of his Speech of the Seventh of March, 1850, that 
the Whigs owed that loss of power and popularity which they 
acknowledged and deplored. After sketching the course of the 
Whig party as to the Nebraska and Kansas questions, and the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, — "verbal demonstrations 
soon succeeded by acquiescence," — he showed that the necessary 
effect and natural purpose of their nomination of Mr. Fillmore 
were to defeat Colonel Fremont and secure the election of Mr. 
Buchanan. From all these premises he affirms that the majority 
of the citizens of Massachusetts had been driven to the conclu- 
sion, " that the present remnants of the Whig party are no longer 
true supporters of constitutional liberty, but in truth representa- 
tives of the united interests of cotton-growei's and cotton-spinners, 
and as being nothing else in this Union but the Northern wing of 
the Slave Power." This pamphlet was very extensively circu- 
lated, and was one of the great forces of that critical election, as 
•well in other parts of the country as in Boston and Massachusetts. 
Mr. Burlingame was elected by a vei-y small majority, after a 
struggle in which no means were spared to defeat him. It was 
enough, however, to give the coup de grace to the Whig party in 
Boston, its last retreat. It then perished from off the earth, and 
all endeavors to resuscitate it under other forms and names have 
signally failed of success. 

The day before the election, November 3d, was given up to a 
public reception of Mr. Sumner, on his first return to his native 
city after the attempt of slavery upon his life. Mr. Quincy was 
invited to make the welcoming address at the boundary of the city, 
which he most cheerfully did, and did well. This is the record 
of these days in his Diary : — 

" November 3. — Mr. Sumner was received at the Boston line by a 
cavalcade of at least a thousand horsemen, collected in Boston and the 
vicinity. He was there addressed by me, and afterwards in front of 
the State-House by the Governor of the Commonwealth, and after- 
wards escorted to his own house. The proceedings of the occasion 
were highly honorable to the State." 

That Mr. Buchanan prevailed over Colonel Fremont only 



LETTEE FROM MR. MOTLEY. 519 

through the frauds of the Pennsylvania election, I need not tell. 
Mr. Quincy felt the disappointment at the time keenly, in com- 
mon with all the enemies of the Slave Power ; but he bated no 
jot of heart or hope, and still believed that the Right was sure to 
prevail in the end. 

The years succeeding the great struggle of 1856 between 
slavery and freedom for the possession of the nation, were passed 
by my father in the usual occupations and recreations which 
filled up the leisure of his old age. He kept up a constant in- 
terest in public affairs, and was never backward in expressing 
his opinions concerning them as occasion offered, but he took no 
active part in them. His serious occupation during the next two 
years was his " Memoir of John Quincy Adams," which was 
published in the autumn of 1858. It contains a clear and suc- 
cinct narrative of Mr. Adams's life, — chiefly of his public life, 

— perhaps as complete a one as could be compiled from the ma- 
terials at his command, chiefly such as were open to all the 
world. The passages in the following most interesting letter 
from Mr. Motley, the historian, relating to this work, contain a 
gratifying testimony to its merits, and an admirable characteriza- 
tion of its subject. 

Mr. Motley to Mr. Qun'fCY. 

"Walton on Thames (England), Nov. 23, 1859. 
" My dear Sir : — Very long afler the date, — 29 January, 1859, 

— which you were so kind as to write, together with your honored 
name, in the blank leaf of the copy of your admirable life of John 
Quincy Adams, did the volume reach me. It has been in my posses- 
sion, Indeed, but a very few weeks ; but I have already read it tlirough 
carefully once, besides studying many passages of It many times. 

" I thank you most sincerely for your goodness in presenting me with 
the book. To have known and venerated its author from my earliest 
youth, I shall always consider one of the great privileges of my life. 
I esteem myself still more fortunate in being able to find sympathy 
with my own political views, and with my own convictions as to the 
tendency and aspects of the American commonwealth, In one of so 
lai'ge and elevated a mind, and so wide an experience, as yourself. 
This is an epoch in which, both in Europe and America, the despotic 
principle seems to be uppermost, in spite of all the struggles of the 
oppressed to free themselves 



520 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" At home, the battle between the Slave Power in alliance with the 
Mob Power, and the party which believes in the possibility of a free 
republic, governed by the laws of reason, and pursuing a path of 
progress and civilization, is soon I hope to be fought out, without any 
compromise. The party of despotism is, I trust, at the next Presi- 
dential election, to be fairly matched against the party of freedom, 
and one or the other must go down in the conflict. 

" I ought to apologize for making this digression from the topic of 
my letter; but knowing your sentiments on the great subject of lib- 
erty, it was impossible for me to say less ; nor was it easy, in thinking 
of John Quincy Adams, the very breath of whose existence was the 
love of fi'eedom, not to speak of the great object of his pure and illus- 
trious career. I was much struck with a brief analysis which you give, 
on pages 374, 375, of his view of our government. ' The Constitution 
neither of the United States nor of Massachusetts can, without a gross 
and fraudulent perversion of language, be tei-med a Democracy. They 
foi m a mixed government, compounded not only of the three elements 
of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, but with a fourth added ele- 
ment, confederacy. The Democrats are now the most devoted and 
most obsequious champions of executive power, — the very life-guard 
of the commander of the armies and navies of this Union. The name 
of Democracy was assumed because it was discovered to be very talcing 
among the multitude ; yet, after all, it is but the investment of the 
multitude with absolute power.' .... 

" It seems to me that human liberty, and its result, human civiliza- 
tion, have not been in so great danger as now for many years. Men 
have grown so familiar with the ugly face of despotism, both in Eu- 
rope and America, that they really begin to love It. It is for this rea- 
son that — especially at this epoch — your life of Mr. Adams is most 
welcome. I wish it could be made a text-book in every public school 
and college in the Free States of America. It is a statue of gold 
raised by most worthy hands to him who most deserved such an honor. 

" Allow me to say, that, from a literary point of view, your work 
seems to me remarkably artistic and satisfactory. The portraiture of 
the just man, with his solid, unshaken mind, tenacious of his noble pur- 
pose in the midst of the ^civimn prava juhenlium' is a very finished 
one. 

" 1 never had the honor of his personal acquaintance, but I have 
always feh — without being thoroughly aware of my reasons — that 
he was among the small band of intellectual, accomplished, virtuous, 
and patriotic statesmen, not only of our country, but' of all countries. 



LORD LYNDHURST. 521 

*• There are always plenty of politicians in the world, but few states- 
men ; and there are sometimes eloquent patriots who are sadly defi- 
cient in culture, and others still more lamentably wanting in still more 
important endowments. But here was a scholar, — a ripe and rare 
one ; a statesman trained in the school of Washington ; a man fa- 
miliar with foreign courts and laws and tongues ; a life-long student, 
ever feasting on the nectared sweets of divine philosophy, and yet a busy, 
practical, and most sagacious administrator of political affairs ; a ready 
debater ; an impetuous and irresistible orator ; and a man so perfect 
in his integrity that it was as impossible for him to be intimidated, as 
to be cajoled or bribed. The wonder is, not that such a man should 
have lost his re-election to the Presidency, but that he ever should by 
any combination have arrived at it at all. 

" But this is not a pleasant reflection. Would that he were to be 
the candidate of the Republicans in 1860. It would almost be a tri- 
umph to be defeated under such an indomitable chief. 
' Et cuncta terrarum subacta 

Prffiter atrocem animum Catonis.' 

" I must once more thank you most warmly for the noble portrait you 
have given us of the patriot, philosopher, and statesman ; and for 
yourself pray accept my sincerest wishes for your health and happi- 
ness. 

" Believe me, my dear sir, most respectfully and truly yours, 

" J. LoTHROP Motley." 

In 1859 my father renewed his acquaintanceship with his cele- 
brated contemporary and townsman, Lord Lyndhurst. He had 
known his lordship when in America, about the year 1794, as 
young Mr. Copley. Lord Lyndhurst was about four months my 
father's junior, and the tradition runs that the same nurse went 
from Mrs. Quiney to Mrs. Copley. At any rate, it is certain, I 
believe, that they were both introduced into the world by no less 
celebrated a person than Doctor Joseph Warren, afterwards the 
General who fell on Bunker Hill. In the year 1827 my father 
set on foot a plan, first suggested by President John Adams, of 
purchasing by subscription Copley's picture of Charles I. de- 
manding the Five Members, and he had actually nearly raised 
the money, when for some reason I do not recollect it came to 
nothing. In 1859 he revived the plan, and finding the sur- 
vivors of the first subscription, and the sons of those deceased, 



522 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ready to come into it, he entered into correspondence with Lord 
Lyndhurst, and obtained the picture for fifteen hundred guineas, 
the price at which it had always been held. It was given by 
the subscribers to the city, and is now in the City Library. It 
is valuable as a fine specimen of the master, and as a collection 
of historical portraits. From this circumstance began an occa- 
sional exchange of slight gifts and letters, two of which I will 
here insert. 

Lord Lyndhurst to Mr. Quency. 

" George Street, April 20, (1859.) 
"Dear Mr. Quincy: — The date of this letter is as above (April), 
the temperature is that of January. Everything seems like the 
weather, — disagreeable and unsettled. Among other evils, you have 
sent us over an American pugilist, to strive with our so-called cham- 
pion. The scene has been most disgraceful, — a scandal to civilization. 
The particulars you will see in that universal instructor, the Times. 

" The Buchanan question rests upon a nice distinction ; and as to 
the St. Juan affair, it does not, I regret to say, promise an easy settle- 
ment Here in Europe the clouds are heavy and dark. It is impossi- 
ble to read the mysterious governor of France. The characters are 
unintelligible. All confidence in him is at an end. No one ventures 
to foretell what is to come next. His avowed policy is, one thing at a 
time, and for this he quotes Napoleon the first. But the Italian 
affair is not yet finished, so there will be some respite. 

" The greatest of calamities would be a war with our American de- 
scendants. I hope both countries will ever strive to avoid such a fear- 
ful event. 

" With great regard and respect, yours, 

" Lyndhurst." 

The Same to the Same. 

" George St., London, February 3, 1860. 
" Dear Mr. Quincy : — I have to thank you for the present of 
your Memoir of the late Mr. Quincy. The book was sent to me by 
Mr. Winthrop, who is somewhere on the Continent. I have read the 
memoir with great interest, as a most valuable addition to the cata- 
logue of our American worthies. The volume contains, I find, among 
much valuable matter, the report of a speech of Lord Chatham's upon 
a proposal for reconciliation with America. We have so few accounts, 
or, I should say, reported specimens of his eloquence, that every ad- 



ELECTION OF LINCOLN. 623 

dition will be welcomed with eagerness. Mr. Quincy appears to have 
caught his style of eloquence with admirable skill. 

" We are here in Europe in a very uncomfortable and anxious state. 
Everything seems unsettled ; and we watch with anxiety the intentions 
and movements of our ally, the Emperor of the French. We heai'd 
yesterday of Mr. Amory * at Nice ; his health has improved by hia 
journey. 

" I sincerely hope that this letter will find you in good health and 
vigor. 

" I remain very faithfully yours, 

" Lyndhurst." 

During the Presidential campaign of 1860, my father felt the 
warmest interest in its whole progress, from the nomination to 
the election of Mr. Lincoln. He did not join personally in the 
canvass, as he had done tour years before. There was no es- 
pecial call upon bim then to exchange his retirement for the 
tumult of politics. During the dreadful winter of 1860-61, 
when the audacity of the Rebels seemed to be equalled only by 
the pusillanimous vacillation of the Executive, he shared in the 
anxiety which agitated every loyal mind in view of the uncertain- 
ties of the situation. But when the reverberation of the cannon- 
ade of Fort Sumter startled the whole North into a consciousness 
of its condition and its duties, there was no younger heart that 
beat higher in that exultant uprising of a great people than his. 
He confessed that he learned to know his countrymen better, 
through the light of that glorious hour, than he had ever done 
before. He said to me, in one of those days, "Now I know we 
are going to be a great nation ! I never felt sure of it before." 
And his clear intuition discerned that the abolition of slavery 
must follow the Rebellion as a moral and political necessity. la 
the first days of doubt and apprehension as to this matter, when 
the Secretary of State was assuring foreign nations that eman- 
cipation was no part of the purpose of the government in put- 
ting down the Rebellion, when generals were endeavoring to 
conciliate the Rebels by threatening to crush slave insurrections 
with an iron hand where there were no slaves to rise, and when 
officers were returning loyal fugitives to Rebel masters, my father 

* Mr. James S. Amory ot Boston, who married a niece of Lord Lyndhurst. 



524 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

had no doubt or fear as to the issue. As slavery had drawn 
the sword, he saw that it must perish by the sword. He had 
a clear perception of the immense difficulties with whit-h Mr. 
Lincoln had to contend, and made allowance for the early delays 
and uncertainties of his conduct accordingly. He always believed 
in the President's honesty of purpose and practical sagacity, and 
vsrould join in none of the censures which sincere men were too 
ready to launch at his head in the first year and a half of the 
war. When I was going to Washington in the spring of 1862, I 
ask^d my father whether he had any word to send to the Presi- 
dent, if I should be fortunate enough to see him. '' Tell him," 
he replied, " that I have watched his course carefully from the 
first, and that I have not yet seen the first mistake that he has 
made." I had the happiness of a short interview with that illus- 
trious person, and, finding that he knew all about my father's 
earlier and later history, I gave him the message, and I well re- 
member the smile of pleasure which lighted up his worn and 
weary face as he answered, '' To have such an expression of 
approbation from Josiah Quincy is indeed a gratification and an 
encouragement ! " 

His faith and hope never wavered in all the vicissitudes of the 
war. He was certain of success in the midst of defeat, and 
saw light shining from behind the darkest cloud ; and this al- 
though he felt his full share of the inconveniences arising from 
the derangement of affiiirs by the war. At the breaking out of 
the Rebellion, his grandson, Samuel Miller Quincy, the second 
son of his eldest son, raised a company for the Second Massachu- 
setts Regiment, — a band of brave men led by gallant young 
gentlemen of the best blood of New England, nearly all of whom, 
with four fifths of the rank and file, died that their country might 
live. The following letter, and the extracts from my father's 
Diary of a later date, but referring to the military service of his 
grandson, are too honorable to both parties to be omitted. 

Mr. Quincy to Captain Quincy. 

"Quixcy, July 20, 1861. 

" My dear Grandson : — All that I hear of you and of the regi- 
ment to which you belong is in a high degree gratify" ng. Heaven 



LETTER TO CAPTAIN QUINCY. t)25 

grant that all future reports from you and from it may, for a long 
time, if not forever, be alike grateful. I have no shrinking in my feel- 
ings as I realize your approach to the field of battle, and to the other 
dangers incident to the life you have chosen. 

" You will recollect, that when you first told me of your intention, 
or rather inclination, to join the army, and asked my opinion and ad- 
vice, that I refused both, and abstained from any look or expression 
indicative of the state of my mind on the subject, stating to you that 
the whole responsibility of such a step must rest upon yourself, free 
from any influence of mine, or any indication of my wishes or opin- 
ions. When, self-moved, self-sustained, and self-directed, you cast 
your lot into the army, and took your station in the regiment, I did 
not refrain from expressing my entire approbation and gratification at 
your course, knowing, as I did, from your statement and my knowl- 
edge of your character, that you were impelled Into the service from 
no vain, unworthy motive, or necessity, but solely from a sense of duty 
to your country, excited by your personal situation and position in 
life, and impelled, as you yourself stated to me, ' by a feeling that 
your great-grandfather, at such a time, and on such a call, and in your 
circumstances, would not have failed to respond in like manner to the 
voice of his country. I approved the motive, I honored the spirit, and 
was deeply touched by the feelings your explanation developed. Yes, 
my grandson, going to the field with such motives, and under such im- 
pulses, no event is to be feared, none deprecated. The laurels you win, 
should you be permitted to gather any, will be briglit with a glory more 
than human ; for they will not have sprung from the ground, but from 
a sense of duty, well considered and well performed, impelled by the 
purest and highest motives which can influence the human heart, and 
called for by your country, under circumstances as imperious and 
blameless as ever excited a nation. 

" But if such happiness is not destined to be yours, and that Al- 
mighty hand which distributes his lot to every human being shall 
decide that yours is to be that of a victim to the cause to which you 
have devoted yourself, neither you nor your friends will have any 
cause of regret at your course, or complaint. The Great Disposer of 
events may, according to his infinite wisdom, have shortened a life 
which you and they had hoped to be long and prosperous. But with 
what cei tainty ? His means of disappointing the hopes of man are 
not confined to the field of battle. He may have foreseen that pro- 
tracted life would not have been to you a benefit or a blessing, and 
that in kindness, as well as wisdom, he has bestowed on you the privi- 



526 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

lege and glory of a martyr to the cause of freedom and of virtue, in 
defence of your country's safety, and of the liberty, the rights, and 
the most precious moral and social prospects of the human race. Is 
any human lot more glorious, or desirable ? 

" Pardon, my dear child, this outflowing of an old man's heart, 
which, among the many objects of its affections, the events of the day 
unavoidably concentrate upon you. In whatever they may result, be 
assured of the approbation, the love, and the never-ceasing prayer for 
you of your grandfather, 

" JOSIAH QUINCY." 

" March 2, 1863. — My grandson, Samuel Miller Quincy, took leave 
of me to return to the army, which he entered at the commencement 
of the civil war, as Captain in the Second Massachusetts Regiment. 
At the battle of Cedar Mountain he received two wounds, one in the 
side, the other through the left foot, was made prisoner, and lay eight 
weeks in the Rebel hospital. He returns to his regiment as its Colonel. 
On taking leave he said, ' Be assured I know that I am your grandson, 
and that I will do nothing unworthy your name.' 

" I replied, ' You have already shown that you are an honor to it.' 
May God bless and keep him in health and safety ! " 

Colonel Quincy took command of his regiment and led it at 
Chancellorsville, but he found that he had returned to active ser- 
vice too soon. He resigned his Colonelcy of the Second Regi- 
ment, but, after a further season of rest, became Colonel of the 
Eighty-First Colored Regiment at Port Hud.son, and afterwards 
in New Orleans, of which city he was at one time Military Mayor, 
and where he was afterwards detailed as President of the Com- 
mission of Claims. While there he received the brevet of Briga- 
dier-General. 

But this is in advance of my story. In December, 1861, my 
father met with an accident, from the effects of which he never 
fully recovered. It was merely slipping from a chair by his bed- 
side upon the floor, but he received an injury in the hip, which 
prevented him from walking without assistance for the rest of his 
Ufe. For three or four months he kept his bed, but afterwards 
was able to go down stairs to his books for the day, and to drive 
out regularly. As he suffered no pain in consequence of this ac- 
cident, it may possibly have saved him from worse injury, as it 



MEETS WITH A DISABLING ACCIDENT. 527 

did certainly contribute to his personal comfort. For it effectu- 
ally prevented his venturing into the public streets, where, from 
his age and deafness, he was exposed to constant danger, and 
where indeed he had been seriously injured a year or two before. 
And, besides, it reconciled him to having a body-servant in con- 
stant attendance upon him, which his independent personal habits 
would have otherwise made intolerable to him. His general 
health stood the confinement perfectly well, and was never broken 
by any distemper but the most incurable of all, — old age. His 
freedom from disease, after the maladies of childhood were over, 
was absolute, and he had met with very few accidents. He had, 
however, one very narrow escape in the year 1828, the last year 
of his Mayoralty. He was walking in Broad Street, when a 
ladder, seventy feet long, fell upon him. His head passed be- 
tween the rounds in the precise middle of the ladder, the weight 
of which struck him to the ground senseless, but with no greater 
injury than fracturing the scapulce of both shoulders, from which 
he recovered in a few days. Had not the accident been attended 
by all these conditions, he must have been killed on the spot. 
Dr. John C. Warren pronounced it the most remarkable escape 
he had ever known in the course of his practice, and the Rev. 
Dr. Channing said to him, in view of it, " Mr. Quincy, there 
must be some very important work for you yet to do in this 
world ! " 

In the year 1857, he visited his old school-boy haunts at An- 
dover in company with my brother. He went over the house 
Avhere he had spent eight years under the charge of the good 
Parson French and his wife, revisited the grounds where he 
used to play, and sat again on the stone where seventy years be- 
fore he buckled on his skates upon the borders of Pomp's Pond, 
a beautiful little wooded lake, so called from Pompey Jackson, 
a negro who lived in a hut on its banks, formerly a slave of 
]\[r. Jonathan Jackson,* who emancipated him by deed, for con- 

* This excellent man (H. C. 1762) was the father of the late Judge Charles 
Jackson, Dr. James Jackson, and Mr. Patrick T.Jackson. He was the son ot 
Edward Jackson (H. C. 1726) and Dorothy Quincy, daughter of Judge Ed- 
muiid Quincy (ante, p. 3). He had been a member of the Continental Congress, 
and was Treasurer of the College at the time of his death in 1810. 



528 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

science' sake, before the Bill of Rights abolished slavery in Mas- 
sachusetts in 1780. Porapey, I think, served in the Kevolution- 
ary war, and he lived down to my own school days, and died at 
somewhere about a hundred years old. My father spent the 
night at the tavern, and was to visit the Academy the next 
morning and address the boys. At breakfast, however, he had 
a sudden seizure of some kind, which he verily believed would 
carry him off. The doctor was sent for, and he was soon out of 
danger, but quite incapable of keeping his engagement. While 
my brother was away keeping it for him, the doctor kept watch 
by his side, and, remarking on the signs of a good constitution, 
well kept, which he observed, he said, '' I should judge, sir, that 
you have been exempt from acute attacks of fevers and the like 
during your life." " You are wrong there," replied my father ; 
" I came near dying of a fever once, and, what is a little odd, it 
was in this very town." " Indeed," responded the doctor, " I had 
never heard of it. It must have been before I came to the town. 
Pray, when was it ? " " In the year seventeen hundred and 
eighty ! " — he having been carried through a bad scarlet-fever 
in that year by good Mrs. French. 

My father had inherited a fair average constitution from his 
ancestors, but not one of those iron frames which neither neglect, 
nor excesses, nor hardly time itself can subdue. His father died 
young, and his mother in middle life. His grandfather, who died 
at seventy-four, reached the greatest age of any of his paternal 
ancestors. His own longevity and perfect health he attributed, 
and I believe with truth, to the rational and philosophical care he 
took of himself, — to his fidelity to what Theodore Parker calls 
" the Religion of the Flesh." That he was strictly temperate, I 
need hardly say. I have already told how he was saved from all 
excess in wine, when such excess was not uncommon, and even 
from the most moderate indulgence, by a headache, which invaria- 
bly chastised the one, as well as the other, for the greater part of 
bis life. Though, during his dinner-giving days, he always kept a 
good cellar of wine, — importing and laying down a pipe of Ma- 
deira every year, as was the genial custom of gentlemen in those 
days, now unhappily fallen into decay, — it was for his friends 



HIS PERSONAL HABITS. 52\) 

and not for himself that he maintained it. At morning and 
night, for many years, he limited himself strictly to very mod- 
erate, plain meals of a fixed amount, which he never exceeded. 
At dinner, he ate with a hearty and healthy appetite whatever 
was set before him, holding that one plentiful meal was demanded 
by nature, and no more. He had, too, he himself hardly knew 
how, many years ago arrived at the knowledge that the skin wa3 
an important part of the animal economy, and one within the 
control of man. He accordingly paid great and regular attention 
to that function, long before the gospel of baptism was so widely 
preached and so generally received as now. And he attached 
especial importance to the air bath, and to careful grooming with 
the flesh-brush and hair-gloves, which last he held to be as good 
for Christians as for cattle. For more than thirty years, since 
his accession to the Presidency of the University, his habits had 
been entirely sedentary. He never walked or rode for exercise 
merely at any period of his life. To answer the necessity for 
muscular exercise, he invented for himself a system of what 
would now be called " Light Gymnastics," which he practised 
morning and night in his bed-room or dressing-room, up to the 
time of his disabling accident. This custom, he believed, greatly 
contributed to preserve him from the ills which so often assail the 
sedentary man. 

I have related, in telling my father's doings as President, how 
he never failed to set the sleepy students an example of rigid 
punctuality at morning chapel. He deserves the less credit for 
this example, however, in that he had contracted, long years be- 
fore, the habit of rising every morning, winter and summer, at 
four o'clock, so that he had been long astir before the prayer-bell 
rung out its unwelcome summons. This excess in early hours, 
however, like every other excess, brought its penalty along 
with it. Nature would not be cheated of her dues, and, if they 
were not paid in season, she would exact them out of season. 
Accordingly, my father was sure to drop asleep, wherever he 
might be, when his mind was not actively occupied ; sometimes 
even in company, if the conversation were not especially animated, 
and always as soon as he took his seat in his gig, or " sulky,*' in 

23 HH 



580 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

which he used to drive himself to town. It was good luck, and 
the good instinct of his horses, that carried him safe through for 
so many years. Morse — as well known to successive genera- 
tions of students, first as stage-coachman and afterwards as omni- 
bus-driver, as old Hobson the carrier was to those of the English 
Cambridge in Milton's time — begged my father's coachman to 
take some order about the President's somnambulic expeditions, 
as he (Morse) had more than once nearly upset the omnibus in 
getting out of his way. One day, Mr. John Quincy Adams, wlio 
was addicted to the same vice of intemperate early rising, with 
mu:h the same consequences, was visiting my father, who invited 
him to go into Judge Story's lecture-room, and hear his lecture to 
his law class. Now Judge Story did not accept the philosophy 
of his two friends in this particular, and would insist that it was a 
more excellent way to take out one's allowance of sleep in bed, 
and be wide awake when out of it, — which he himself most as- 
suredly always was. The Judge received the two Presidents 
gladly, and placed them in the seat of honor on the dais by his 
side, fronting the class, and proceeded with his lecture. It was 
not long before, glancing his eye aside to see how his guests 
were impressed by his doctrine, he saw that they were both of 
them sound asleep, and he saw that the class saw it too. Pausing 
a moment in his swift career of speech, he pointed to the two 
sleeping figures, and uttered these words of warning: "Gentle- 
men, you see before you a melancholy example of the evil ef- 
fects of early rising ! " The shout of laughter with which this 
judicial obiter dictum was received eflfectually aroused the sleep- 
ers, and it is to be hoped that they heard and profited by the 
remainder of the discourse. 

My father's occupations were not materially afi^ected by his 
hurt after he was permitted to quit his bedroom and return to 
his library. He received his friends as before, and was visited 
by almost every stranger of eminence from abroad or from other 
sections of this country. One of the latest and the most honored 
of these welcome guests was Richard Cobden, who visited him in 
the summer of 1862, at Quincy. It did not seem probable, as 
they sat and talked together in the light of that summer's day, 



BEREAVEMENTS. 531 

that the English statesman, then in the prime of his life and his 
greatness, would survive by less than a year the American Nes- 
tor, who had already seen three generations of breathing men. 
Yet so it was ordered. My father was able even to attend 
several of the public days at Cambridge, where he was always 
received with the most cordial enthusiasm, the whole audience 
usually rising, and giving him cheer upon cheer, while every al- 
lusion to him was greeted with rounds of applause. The eye 
that saw him blest him, and the ear that heard him bore witness 
to him. He attended the inauguration of his fifth successor, the 
Reverend Dr. Thomas Hill, on the 4th of March, 1863, and the 
meeting of the Alumni on the day after Commencement in the 
same year, less than a year before his death, on both which 
occasions he made admirable speeches, needing no allowance to 
be made for him because of his burden of more than ninety 
years. His birthdays were always remembered by the general 
public, as well as by his personal acquaintances, and his house 
was always visited by troops of friends upon those anniversaries 
with genuine congratulations and good wishes. Thus his life 
declined with slow and almost unperceived decay, the most re- 
vered and honored man of the city in which he lived. 

But while his latter days thus went down blest with all that 
should accompany old age, he was not exempted from the be- 
reavements and sorrows which are also its inevitable attendants. 
The doom of man was not reversed for him. Though Death had 
entered that happy home but once in so many years, he had cast 
his shadow across its threshold, and darkened its light. In the 
midsummer of 1858 his granddaughter, Helen Ruthven Water- 
pton, the only surviving child of his daughter Anna, died at 
Naples, in her seventeenth year. I need not describe the grief 
which -the untimely blighting of this fair blossom brouglit to him, 
as to us all. Of this dear child the poet Bryant thus speaks in 
his " Letters from Spain " : "I confess I felt a degree of pride in 
so magnificent a specimen of my countrywomen as this young 
lady presented, — uncommonly beautiful in person, with a dig- 
nity of presence and manner much beyond her years, and a 
sweetness no less remarkable than the dignity." And the poe*' 



532 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY 

"Whittier has made her the motive of one of the most exquisite 
of his recent lesser poems. It is that entitled, " Naples. — 1860. 
Inscribed to Robert C. Waterston." In November, 1860, my 
father lost by death a beloved daughter-in-law in the prime of 
matronly goodness and beauty, who had always shown him the 
duty and love of a daughter, and whom he did not distinguish in 
his affection from the children of his blood. Two years after, in 
1862, his son-in-law, Benjamin D, Greene, died, — respected by 
men of science on both sides the Atlantic as a botanist of emi- 
nence, and honored and beloved, for the elements of strength 
and sweetness finely mingled in his charactei', by all to whom 
the retiring modesty of his nature permitted him to be intimately 
known. 

Under these bereavements, and in the prospect of his own 
approaching death, he was sustained by a full persuasion of 
another life, and by the continual sense of the superintending 
presence of a beneficent Deity. He seldom spoke of his re- 
ligious opinions or devotional feelings, and it is to the revela- 
tions of his Diary that those who knew him best owe the knowl- 
edge of their character and extent. During the period which 
preceded the schism in the Congregational churches of New 
England, and at the time it took place, he always sympathized 
and sided with the liberal party. From the time of the settle- 
ment of his schoolfellow and friend, Dr. Kirkland, over the New 
South Church, until that divine was translated to Cambridge, 
he attended on his ministrations. From that time until he 
himself succeeded his friend in the Presidency of the Univer- 
sity, he sat imder the preaching of William Ellery Channing, in 
the church in Federal Street, and had a keen enjoyment of the 
genius and eloquence of that great man. But he never called 
himself a Unitarian, nor took any part in denominational discus- 
sions. Indeed, in a speech he delivered before the Board of 
Overseers "of Harvard University, February 6, 1845, in vindica- 
tion of that institution against sundry charges contained in a 
minority report presented by Mr. George Bancroft, he expressly 
disclaims the name. " I never did, and never will, call myself a 
Unitarian ; because the name has the aspect, and is loaded by the 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 533 

world with (he imputation, of sectarianism." That he accepted 
the distinctive doctrine of that denomination of Christians ap- 
pears by the following extract from his Diary. 

^'' Augunt 20, 1854. — I lay aside, for myself, all further thought or 
argnmeut concerning the Divine unities. Let any man cast off the 
prejudices and prepossessions of childhood, and read the fifth chapter 
of Milton's Treatise concerning the Scripture Christian Doctrine, and 
it seems to me impossible for any mind thus freed from the trammels 
of preconceived opinion not to be brought to the same conclusions 
with this great divine and greatest of poets." 

But he regarded doctrinal differences as of slight importance, 
especially as to matters beyond the grasp of the human intellect. 
His catholicity of spirit fraternized with " all who profess and 
call themselves Christians," and who prove their title to the 
name by their lives. His opinion as to religious disputes he 
sometimes expressed in the words of his favorite poet, — 

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; 
He can't he wrong whose life is in the right." 

And in his Diary for 1854, a few days before the entry I have 
just given, he records this confession of his faith, containing 
what seemed to him the conclusion of the whole matter. 

^^ July 23 (Sunday). — From the doctrines with which metaphysical 
divines have chosen to obscure the word of God, — such as predestina- 
tion, election, reprobation, &c., — I turn with loathing to the refresh- 
ing assurance which, to my mind, contains the substance of revealed 
religion, — ' In every nation, he who feareth God, and worlieth right- 
eousness, is accepted of Him ' " 

Though my father died before the end of the war, he lived 
long enough to see the approaching victory of the nation. On 
the 1st of January, 1863, a new and acceptable year of freedom 
dawned upon the people, as well the free as the slaves. He had 
foreseen that emancipation must be the issue of an appeal to arms 
of slaveholders in behalf j)f slavery; but he none the less re- 
joiced that his eyes were permitted to see the great day of de- 
liverance. On that immortal day he received from President 
Lincoln an imperial photograph portrait of himself, accompanied 



534 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

by the following note from Mrs. Lincoln. It will ever hold, as 
may be readily conceived, an honored place among the household 
treasures of the family. 

Mrs. Lincoln to Mr. Quincy. 

" ExECDTivE Mansion, December 30, 1862. 
" Mrs. Lincoln presents her most respectful compliments to the 
Honorable Mr. Quincy, and begs leave to present to him what their 
friends consider an excellent photograph of the President, who desires 
to be particularly remembered to him, desiring that it may reach him 
on the first day of the New Year, and trusting his health may be good 
and his valuable liffe long." 

Upon the formation of the Union Club in Boston, for the pur- 
pose of sustaining the President in his public course, my father 
was one of the earliest members, and, though he declined the 
presidency of it, which was given to Mr. Everett, he made an 
address to tlie Club, on the 27th of February, which was after- 
wards printed and widely dispersed. He began by saying that 
he could not excuse himself, on the ground of his age, from join- 
ing this association, because he regarded the existing war " as 
involving a crisis in the condition of the whole human race, from 
which no human being has a right to shrink." He set forth 
briefly the object of the Confederacy, chiefly in the words of its 
Vice-President, Stephens, — to put an end to the agitating ques- 
tion concerning African slavery, by establishing it as the normal 
condition of the African, and founding the new government 
" upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth, — the 
first in the history of the world based upon it." Mr. Quincy then 
proceeded thus : — 

" There is now no possible doubt concerning the object and nature 
of the Constitution of this Confederacy, — that it is to establish among 
the whole human race a new form of civilization. In conformity with 
its principles, the founders of it give public notice to the nations of the 
earth, that the old form of civilization has been by them abrogated, 
leaving no loop-hole or pretence for any nation or individual to escape 
from the dilemma, or from the duty, of either abandoning the old or 
resisting the new form of civilization. The enslaving of Afruians is, on 



ADDRESS TO THE UNION CLUB. 535 

the principle of this Confederacy, no longer a mere power to be exercised 
when an Individual could be bought, inherited, or stolen, but is founded 
on an immutable principle of assumption, that the African race have 
been constituted by God and nature unequal to the Caucasian ; includ- 
ing, not the duty of the latter to aid them in rising in the scale of 
civilization, but the right of reducing them to a state of forced servi- 
tude, and of depriving them of all social and moral rights, — of liberty, 
property, and even life ; having no property in themselves, their wives, 
nor their offspring, — all being holden at the will, and subject to the 
control, of the Caucasian master. To this condition, the Constitution 
of this Confederacy reduces the whole African race ; and, while de- 
claring these to be its principles, their founders claim the privilege of 
being admitted into the society of the nations of the earth ! Princi- 
ples worthy only of being conceived and promulgated by the inmates 
of the infernal regions, and a fit constitution for a confederacy in Pan- 
demonium ! 

" Now, as soon as the nature of this Constitution is truly explained 
and understood, is it possible that the nations of the earth can admit 
such a Confederacy into their society ? Can any nation, calling itself 
civilized, associate, with any sense of self-respect, with a nation avow- 
ing and practising such principles ? Will not every civilized nation, 
when the nature of this Confederacy is understood, come to the side 
of the United States, and refuse all association with them, as, in trutli, 
they are, liostes humani generis ? For the African is as much entitled 
to be protected in the rights of humanity as any other portion of the 
human race. 

" As to Great Britain, her course Is, in the nature of things, already 
fixed and immutable. She must, sooner or later, join the United 
States in this war, or be disgi-aced throughout all future time ; for the 
principle of that civilization which this Confederacy repudiates was 
by her — to her great glory and with unparalleled sacrifices — introduced 
into the code of civilization ; and she will prove herself recreant if she 
fails to maintain it." 

During this year he recorded almost daily in his Diary his 
occupations, his readings, and his visitors. I can make room for 
but very few of them. 

" March 3. — Visited by Mr. F. Bassett. In familiar conversation 
on men and historical events, he told me that Mr. Webster once said to 
him, that ' the speeches of Mr. Quincy In Congress were the best and 
abkst ever delivered in that body on the influence of slavery.' AU 



536 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

tLis may be extravagant, but I look back upon the exertions I made 
in my Congressional life, and see in my speeches but little to regret in 
point of language and manner, — nothing in point of principle." 

" March 20. — I have read during the last month four of Shake- 
speare's plays, — King John, Richard II., and Henry IV. in both 
Parts." 

The summer of 1863 was made memorable in the history of 
the war by the enlistment of colored regiments at the North. 
The first regiment which went thence to the field was the 54th 
Massachusetts, under the command of Robert Gould Shaw, the 
grandson of my father's life-long friend of the same name, whom 
I have already had occasion to mention. I need not rejient the 
story of that regiment, nor tell again the tale of Fort Wagner. 
There is no brighter and no sadder page in American historj 
than the one that records it. For its record proves that the black 
race, to whom the first pi'ivilege the American people had ac- 
corded was that of fighting and dying in their behalf, had shown 
the deliberate courage, the capacity for discipline, the coolness in 
danger, the dash or patience as need demanded, and the subordi- 
nation to authority, which make the best veteran troops. They 
proved their right to liberty and to citizenship, by seeking them 
in the face of greater and more terrible dangers than any their 
white fellow-soldiers had to fear. But the same record tells how 
the gallant and generous youth that led them fell at their head. 
Possessed of every advantage of fortune and social condition, 
blest with every virtue that can grace pure and ingenuous youth, 
adorned by every accomplishment of education and every charm 
of person and manner, bound by every tie of affection that can 
hold a human heart closest to earth, he left it all and cast in his 
lot with the lowliest and most despised of his countrymen, in life 
and in death, that he might deliver them and his country. Many 
brave men have been as faithful to duty and died as nobly as he, 
and have been as deeply mourned ; but it was his fortune to con- 
nect his name with the era in the history of the nation when the 
black race was called to its help and its deliverance. This great 
epoch in our annals Colonel Shaw baptized with his heart's blood, 
and with it his name will be inseparably and forever united. 



DEATH OF COLONEL SHAW. 537 

On receiving the news of the attack upon Fort Wagner and 
the death of Colonel Shaw, Mr. Quincy addressed this letter to 
his father, Mr. Francis George Shaw, of Staten Island, N. Y. : — 

Mr. QumcY to Mr. Shaw. 

"Quincy, Aueust 17, 1863. 

'' Although I am aware how delicate is the endeavor, and how diffi- 
cult the fit moment, of mingling sympathy with suffering, yet I cannot 
refrain from uttering the deep grief of my heart, and communicating 
to you and your lady my sad coincidence of feeling with you on your 
bereavement. It is not for me to speak to you of that faith and trust 
in the wisdom and goodness of the All-disposer, who distributes to us 
mortals happiness and sorrow as seems best for us to His infinite will. 
Your own minds have already sought and been consoled by the assur- 
ance that ' whatever He gives, H« gives the best.' But I may be permit- 
ted to recall the many causes of gratitude and consolation which are 
united with your loss, rendering it at once conspicuous by virtue and 
permanently useful as an example. Your son gave his life in defence 
of the integrity and laws of his country. He yielded it in association 
with an oppressed race contending for freedom and the rights of hu- 
man beings. He fell in a conflict selected, and on the spot assigned, 
by the authorities of his country, — in a service for which only the 
highest bravery is selected, and which none but the bravest spirits 
would accept. He fell with brave men, contending for liberty and 
their rights, and was buried with them in a grave which will be hal- 
lowed and celebrated in all future time, whenever and so long as the 
rights of human beings shall have an advocate, martyrdom in their 
defence shall have a eulogist, and the spirit of chivalry, ennobled by 
union with virtue and religion, shall be honored and reverenced. 

" My friend, let these truths assuage griefs which they cannot pre- 
vent. Could long life, if permitted to your son, do more, — or have 
given to him a more prosperous or immortal career ? In sympathy for 
your sorrows, I am truly your friend, 

"JOSIAH QuitJCY." 

The next month he was moved by the admirable letter 
of President Lincoln to the Convention of Illinois, maintaining 
the justice and necessity of his course, especially in the matter 
of the Emancipation Proclamation, to address to him tne follow 
jng letter. It was not originally intended for the presr, 'jut, hav 
23* 



638 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

ing found its way thither, I give it here entire, together with the 
President's reply, as concluding not unfitly or ungracefully my 
father's communications with the public. 

Mr. Quincy to President Lincoln. 

" QtriNcr, Massachusetts, September 7 1863. 

" Sir : — Old age has its privileges, which I hope this letter will not 
exceed. But I cannot refrain from expressing to you my gratification 
and my gratitude for your letter to the Illinois Convention, — happy, 
timely, conclusive, and effective. What you say concerning emanci- 
pation, your proclamation, and your course of proceeding in relation to 
it, was due to truth and your own character, — shamefully assailed as 
it has been. The development is an imperishable monument of wisdom 
and virtue. 

'' Negro slavery and the possibility of emancipation have been subjects 
of my thought for more than seventy years ; being first introduced to 
it by the debates in the Convention of Massachusetts for adopting the 
Constitution, in 1788, which I attended. I had subsequently opportu- 
nities of knowing the views on that subject, not only of such men as 
Hamilton, King, Jay, and Pickering, but also of distinguished slave- 
holders, — of both the Pinckneys, of William Smith of South Carolina, 
and of many others. With the first of these I had personal intercourse 
and acquaintance. I can only say that I never knew the individual, 
slaveholder or non-slaveholder, who did not express a detestation of it, 
and the desire and disposition to get rid of it. The only difficulty, in 
case of emancipation, was, what shall we do for the master, and what 
shall we do with the slave ? A satisfactory answer to both these ques- 
tions has been, until now, beyond the reach and grasp of human wis- 
dom and power. 

" Through the direct influence of a good and gracious God, the peo- 
ple of the United States have been invested with the power of answer- 
ing satisfactorily both these questions, and also of providing for the 
difficulties incident to both, of which if they fail to avail themselves, 
thoroughly and conclusively, they will entail shame on themselves, and 
sorrow and misery on many generations. 

" It is impossible for me to regard the power thus granted to this 
people otherwise than as proceeding from the direct influence of a 
superintending Providence, who ever makes those mad whom He hi' 
tends to destroy. The only possible way in which slavery, after it had 
grown to such height, could have been abolished, is that which Heaven 
has adopted. 



LETTER TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN. .539 

•* Your instrumentality in the work is to you a subject of special 
glory, favor, and felicity. The madness of Secession and its inevitable 
consequence, civil war, will, in their result, give the right and the 
power of universal emancipation sooner or later. If the United States 
do not undei-stand and fully appreciate the boon thus bestowed on 
them, and fail to improve it to the utmost extent of the power granted, 
they will prove recreant to themselves and to posterity. 

" I write under the impression that the victory of the United States 
in this war is inevitable. 

" Compromise is impossible. Peace on any other basis would be the 
establishment of two nations, each hating the other, both military, 
both necessarily hostile, their territories interlocked, with a tendency 
to never-ceasing hostility. Can we leave to posterity a more cruel 
inheritance, or one more hopeless of happiness and prosperity ? 

" Pardon the liberty I have taken in this letter, and do not feel 
obliged in any way to take notice of it ; and believe me ever your 
grateful and obliged servant, 

" josiah quincy." 

President Lincoln to Mr. Quincy. 

" Executive Mansion, Washington, September 12, 1863. 
" Dear and honored Sir : — Allow me to express the personal 
gratification I feel at the receipt of your very kind letter of the 7th 
of September, and to thanli you most cordially for its wise and earnest 
words of counsel. 

" Believe me, my dear sir, to be very respectfully and sincerely your 
friend and servant, 

" A. Lincoln." 

On the 28th of October my father removed from Quincy to 
Boston for the last time, as he himself seems to have foreboded. 

" October 28. — The monsoon gale of existence has continued to fill 
the sails of my life ever since August last. To-day I take leave of my 
summer residence at Quincy, possibly — probably — for the last time. 
Life, at all times uncertain, is at ninety-two the last running of the 
sands of its glass. I have but little of its grains remaining ; but I 
neither wish to multiply nor reduce them." 

" November 2. — Began to read J. E. Cairnes's work ' On the Slave 
Power and the Causes and Issues of the American Contest,' — a work 
of great merit, evidencing a very thorough knowledge of the subject." 



640 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

" November 3. — Continued reading Cairnes's ' Slave Power.' Went 
to the polls and threw my vote for the Republican ticket." 

He was so much pleased with Professor Cairnes's admirable 
work, that he wrote to him a very long letter about it, — alto- 
gether too long for insertion, — one of the last and one of the 
best he ever wrote. The answer of Professor Cairnes did not 
arrive until four days before my father's death, but I insert it 
here as its most convenient place. 

Mr. Cairnes to Mr. Quincy. 

" 74 Lower Mount St., Dublin, June 4, 1864. 

" Dear Sir : — I trust It is not yet quite too late to thank you for 
the very great gratification you have afforded me by your interesting 
and much prized letter, which reached me, I am ashamed to say, so 
long as some six months ago. 

" It is indeed reassuring, and gives me a confidence in the soundness 
of my view of the American civil struggle which few other testimo- 
nies could give, that my book should have received the sanction of 
your knowledge, experience, and sagacity, — a sanction, too, which has 
been conveyed in terms of such liberal commendation as have afforded 
me, I assure you, very lively satisfaction 

" I read your views on American politics with much interest, and I 
am entirely disposed to follow you in youf opinion that the universal 
diffusion of sound popular education, together with the just distribu- 
tion of the land of the country among its people, are the two poles on 
which turn the destinies of American democracy, — conditions which, as 
you justly remark, have been realized in the United States, and more 
emphatically in New England, for the first time in the history of the 
world. 

" I think you will have observed, notwithstanding some disappoint- 
ing side-eddies, that, on the whole, the movement of opinion in this 
country has been satisfactory since you wrote. The old cant about 
the non-slavery character of the contest has been effectually silenced 
by the course of events. I think, too, that people here are begmning 
to understand better, and to regard with more sympathy and respect, 
the ' Union ' feeling. The unparalleled tenacity, moreover, with wliich 
the North sticks to its purpose, combined with the courage and endur- 
ance exhibited in the campaigns of the last two years, — in a word, 
the accumulating manifestations of high national character in the 



CONCLUSION OF HIS DIARY. 541 

American people, are producing silently, but I think steadily, a 
healthy efiect, which, I have no doubt, will show itself in our future 
intercourse. At present we are watching with extreme anxiety the 
tremendous struggle in Virginia. 

" Believe me, dear sir, most respectfully and truly yours, 

"J. E. Cairnes." 

" November 26. — Thanksgiving, a day of joy, gratitude, and thank- 
fulness. Had eighteen at my table, consisting of sons, daughters, sons- 
in-law, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, — all 
happy, united, good, and prosperous. In the evening many visitors ; 
among others, Charles Sumner, Mr. Bowen of Tennessee, and Mr. 
Hoffman, the Recorder of New York." 

'■'•November 27. — At Cambridge. Attended the meeting of the 
Committee on the Observatory. Mr. Bond read his report. Present, 
Mr. Mitchell, R. C. Winthrop, IngersoU Bowditch, President Sparks, 
R. T. Paine, and others. Went through all the rooms, — that of the 
great telescope, the library, and the other instruments." 

Thus the ninety-second y^ear of my father's life wore away in 
the performance of duties, in the enjoyments of society, and in 
the recreations of literature. There was no symptom of even 
diminished activity and sprightliness of mind. He was as alive 
to the events of the day and to the pleasures of conversation 
as ever he had been. By his wise philosophy of life he had 
made maturity reach far into the years usually the domain of old 
age. Towards the end of 1863, however, he evidently fore- 
boded that the days of darkness approached. Though there 
were no outward and visible signs of failing nature more than 
had long existed, he probably had secret intimations that the end 
could not be deferred much longer. It was under the influence 
of this presentiment that he ended his Diary, on the evening of 
the last day of the year, 1863, with this fit and beautiful conclu- 
sion : — 

" December 31. — With the close of the year comes the conviction 
that the time has come to close this Diary forever. The light of the 
6un is withdrawing ; but, blessed be Heaven, the light of the evening 
star reveals the hope of a coming immortality." 



642 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

1864. 

Last Scene of all. — His Ninety-Second Birthday. — Illness. — 
Leiter to Mr. Dabney. — Removal to Quincy. — Interest in Pub- 
lic Affairs. — Death. — Funeral. — Tributes to his Memory. — 
Letters from Mr. Charles F. Adams and Mit. J. L. Motley. — His 
Personal Appearance. — Story's Statue. — Busts and Portraits. 

— His Deliberation of Speech. — His Life in the Passing Day. 

— His part in the Anti-Slavery Revolution. — Conclusion. 

THERE is not much more to tell. My father's ninety-second 
birthday was welcomed by his many friends with all their 
usual demonstrations of affectionate interest and respect. Not 
long after that day, however, he was attacked by an epidemic in- 
fluenza, from the effects of which he never recovered. But he 
rallied sufficiently in a few weeks to take the long drives which 
were his latest recreation. His mental faculties were not weak- 
ened, but they grew more and more sluggish. When aroused, 
they were as clear and sound as ever, as I think will be shown 
by the following letter, the last he ever wrote, to his valued 
friend of many years, Mr. Charles W. Dabney, the American 
Consul at Fayal. 

"My dear Mr. Dabxey: — I have this moment received your 
favor of the 17th February, and cannot refrain from immediately 
acknowledging the gratification your kind, respectful, affectionate 
reminiscence confers, lest old age should put a veto upon my powers, 
which I find precarious and changeful. Your ' regard ' will be found 
written on my heart, where all your many kind remembrances are in- 
Bcribed with a permanency which death only can obliterate. 

" You had occasion for the interest you express for my state of 
health. About the 1st of February I was assailed with what is called 
injluenza, in a style more appropriate for a younger man. At the age 
of ninety-three, nature does not recuperate after the fashion of an 
earlier period of life. Accordingly I have been ever since prostrated 



REMOVAL TO QUINCY. 543 

in my bed, and am yet little more than a child, dependent for getting 
up, and for all locomotion, on an assistant. This is almost the first let- 
ter I have written for these six weeks ; but my respect and interest in 
you and yours have made me unmindful of old age and sickness. 
Your letter was a panacea for all trouble. 

" I shall probably never write to you again. But no matter. We 
shall soon (greet *) each other in another world, and renew the intimacy 
we have had in this. Until which time, adieu. God be with you. In 
life or death, forever yours, 

"JOSIAH QuiNCY." 

Happily, during these last few months he suffered no pain. 
But the charm of living was gone. Weariness of life and long- 
ing for death came over him. He slept for the most of the time, 
by day as well as by night, but he longed for " the sleep that 
knows no waking." One day he said to me, " Remember, when I 
am in my grave, J shall be where I wish to be ! " It was not the 
impatience of discontent, but the longing of a tired child for its 
bed. It was the instinct with which kind Nature has provided 
her children, to make the inevitable hour welcome and grateful 
when it comes in her due course. When the time of the annual 
flitting to the country came, and his daughter suggested it to him, 
he said : " I am willing to go with you to Quincy. Do just as you 
please about it. But remember, I wish my funeral to take place 
from Boston. In Boston I was born, in Boston I have lived, and 
from Boston I choose to be buried. Promise me this." 

On the 3d of June, accompanied by two of his daughters, he 
was removed to Quincy, passing for the last time through the 
streets of the city he loved so well. He was able to be dressed 
and down stairs as a general thing, and to take carriage exercise 
almost every day. The last time I saw him was the day but 
one before he died. I had driven my daughter over, and we ar- 
rived just before he returned from his last drive. He was lifted 
from the carriage by two men, and was the very image of extreme 
old age. He looked kindly at us, and said a few words, but was 
too much fatigued to talk much. I had no notion, however, that 
it was the last time I should see him in life. There was no ap- 
parent reason why he should not continue at least through the 

• Word illegible in MS. 



544 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

summer. He still took an intelligent interest in the news of the 
day. His daughters read the newspapers to him every morning, 
and he kept himself advised of the events of the war as they oc- 
curred. The last event which excited his particular attention and 
admiration was the great engineering feat of Colonel Bailey, — 
pronounced by Admiral Porter in his despatch, " without doubt, 
the best ever performed," — by which he saved the flotilla of gun- 
boats on the Red River, and probably shortened the war by one 
or two years. This great action roused my father to fresh life. 
He had the report read twice over to him, and then, as if he had 
seen of the travail of his soul and was satisfied, he exclaimed, 
" That is true glory ! I will hear no more." 

Though there was no especial reason for expecting the end just 
when it came, he was himself evidently daily looking and hoping 
for it. " He repeatedly took leave of his daughters," my eldest 
sister writes, to whom I am indebted for the particulars of those 
of his last days when I was not able to be with him, " thanking 
them for their affectionate attentions, and saying, ' I am sorry to 
leave you, but I wish to go ; I have had a remarkably long, pros- 
perous, and happy life, blessed in my children, grandchildren, and 
great-grandchildren. It is time that I should go. Weep not, 
mourn not, for me ! ' " Even on the morning of the last day of 
his life, there was no especial reason for supposing that it had in- 
deed come. So little, that my brother, who lives on the estate, 
after visiting him in the morning, went to keep an engagement to 
address an Agricultural Society at Framingham, and so missed 
the closing scene. There was no time to send for me, and thus 
neither of his sons was present when he died. But our absence 
was fitly supplied by the presence of his three daughters, the 
friends, companions, and guardians of his old age, whose cheer- 
ful society, unremitting watchfulness, and assiduous affection had 
given grace, comfort, and happiness to his latter days. My sister 
thus describes the end. " On Thursday, the 30th of June, he 
was evidently losing strength, and did not leave his chamber ; 
but it was not until noon on the 1st of July that it was per- 
ceived that a great change had occurred. No one was with him 
but his attendant and his three daughters during the last peace- 



mS DEATH AND FUNERAL. * 545 

ful hours, until, as quietly as an infant sinks to slumber, he 
ceased to breathe, and the spirit returned to God who gave it ! " 
As soon as his death was known, Mr. Frederick W. Lincoln, 
the Mayor of Boston, came in person to learn the wishes of the 
family as to the funeral, with the necessary arrangements for 
which in the city he charged himself in his official capacity. The 
funeral took place on Tuesday, July 6th, from the Church in Ar- 
lington Street. The services were impressively performed by 
the Reverend Ezra Stiles Gannett, D. D., assisted by the Rever- 
end John D. Wells, the minister of Quincy. Notwithstanding 
that it was the time of the summer dispersion of the citizens, the 
church was entirely filled. The lines of Sir Henry Wotton, prime 
favorites with the dead, — 

" How happy is he born or taught 
Who serveth not another's will," — 

were sung by the choir, and were surely never more fitly applied. 
The members of the City Government, the President, Fellows, 
and Faculty of the University, the Judges of the Supreme Court, 
many members of the bar, and clergymen of the different relig- 
ious denominations, and many citizens who had known him in 
his various public functions or in private life, made up the attend- 
ance. Mi-. Everett, Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, Colonel Thomas 
Aspinwall, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and four ex-Mayors of 
Boston, were the pall-bearers. As the procession moved, all the 
bells of the city were tolled, and the flags on the State-House and 
the other public buildings were hung at half-mast. The funeral 
was accompanied by the civic authorities and other functionaries 
as far as the line of the city at Cambridge Bridge, whence it pro- 
ceeded, attended only by the family and their immediate friends, 
to the cemetery at Mount Auburn. At the chapel of the ceme- 
tery a short service was held by the Reverend President Hill, 
after which, laying him by the side of his wife, we left him to 
the rest he had so yearned for. 

His death called forth tributes to his character and public ser- 
vices from the press in all parts of the United States. The two 
Boards of the City Government of Boston, the Overseers and 
Faculty of the University, the various learned societies of which 

II 



546 * LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

he was a member, and the political associations to which he be- 
longed, or with which he was in sympathy, paid homage, alwa3'S 
sincere and touching and sometimes eloquent, to his memory. Of 
the many private letters which the family received on the occa- 
sion of my father's death, I shall gratify my own feelings, as well 
as my sense of what is due to him, by inserting the two following, 
addressed to myself by his friends and my own, Mr. Charles 
Francis Adams, now Minister at the Court of St. James's, and 
Mr. John Lothrop Motley, then holding the same diplomatic 
position at the Court of Vienna, but who is more widely known, 
and will be always remembered, as the historian of the Dutch 
Republic. They express the feelings with which the generation 
that grew up to manhood when he was past the middle term 
of life regarded him, in a manner honorable to all parties. 

Mr. Adams to Mr. E. Quincy. 

" London, 29 July, 1864. 

" My dear Edmund : — I thank you for thinking of me so far as to 
send me a copy of your notice of your father's life in the Tribune, at 
the same time with your letter announcing his demise. When, on the 
day before my departure from Boston, I took leave of him, I admit 
that I thought it unlikely that I should see him again. But as time 
wore on, and my term of service here appeared to be drawing to a 
close, the prospect of returning to find him still among us grew by no 
means so unreasonable. I began to think him a fair candidate for the 
small list of centenarians in the catalogue of graduates of Harvard 
University. My vision was at last rather suddenly dispelled, and he 
is no more. With him disappears, I think, the very last of the men 
whom I associate with my earliest impressions of life in America. It 
is but a few days short of forty-seven years ago that I first saw him at 
his own mansion In Quincy, — since which period his name and pei-son 
have been continuously connected in my mind with every friendly 
office towards three generations of my family. I need not say to you 
how rarely this happens to any one in America. It is not common 
anywhere in the midst of the vicissitudes of this world. I shall cher- 
ish the recollection for tlie remainder of my days, as of an event which, 
at least in my experience, cannot occur again. 

" It is rare that an individual leaves so unspotted a record behind 
him as your father has done. Born in the lap of fortune, this neither 



LETTER FROM MR. MOTLEY. 547 

emasculated his vigor nor impaired his integrity. He never refused 
to assume a responsible trust, and never failed to acquit himself in it 
with honor. Glory enough for any man ! 

" Tliis peaceful termination of a long and well-spent life is not a 
matter to justify any language of condolence with his family. They 
could not have wished for him anything else, as he could not have 
hoped for more. 

" I pray you to believe, yourself, and to assure the other members 
of your father's family, that no more ardent admirer of his character 
can be found than your affectionate friend, 

"C. F. Adams." 

Mr. Motley to the Same. 

" Vienna, 7 August, 1864. 

"My dear Quincy: — I thank you very sincerely for your letter 
of July 15th, which reached me a few days ago. I thank you also for 
the Tribune, containing the biographical sketch. As I take the Daily 
Tribune, I had already received the paper in due course, but I was 
very glad to have a second copy, although I trust erelong to possess 
it in a more enduring shape. You were quite right, of course, to pub- 
lish it first in a journal enjoying justly so very wide a circulation. 

" I wish most earnestly that I could talk to you by the hour together 
about your father. To write is so unsatisfactory, — I mean to Write a 
letter, — because, if one enters on such a subject at all, one never 
knows where to stop. A letter is not a volume, and less than a volume 
would hardly suffice to say all that ought to be said about Josiah 
Quincy. 

" The graceful and heartfelt eulogies which have already sprung up 
like flowers from his new-made grave, have been sufficient to prove to 
you, and to all who have the honor of belonging to him, how firmly 
established he was in the affections and the esteem of the best part 
of the American people. But upon that point you could hardly have 
had a doubt. I ffeel, however, in attempting to speak of him. as if it 
were impossible to avoid saying what has just been said all around 
you, by so many, and so much more eloquently than I could say it. 
Let me thank you, however, for assuring me that he honored me with 
his personal regard, — that he was kind enough to look with indulgence 
on my poor labors in literature. I had the happiness of hearing this 
from himself, and I was always very proud of his approbation. From 
the time when I first came into his presence as a very young Junior 
soon after his Inauguration at Cambridge, down to that delightful din- 



548 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

nor at Quincy, — do you remember it? — in the summer of '61, just 
before my departure for this post, he was always most kind, genial, and 
fi-iendly to me, and I have always appreciated his kindness to the full. 
I shall say no more of that. But really I am afraid to trust myself 
to speak of him as I really think. I don't like the language of exag- 
geration and weak enthusiasm, and yet I have always had a very great 
admiration of his character and of his intellect. 

" The only thing I have always regretted is, that he retired so soon 
from public life, — I mean from national public life. He lost but little, 
but we lost much, — more, perhaps, than can now be measured. The 
influence fi'om first to last of such high probity and such clear vision 
on the course of affairs, had it been directly exerted by him during the 
long period in which he preferred retirement from the national service, 
could not but have been most wholesome for us all. Boston and the 
Univei'sity gained the best of municipal magistrates and of presidents, 
but the senate and the council-board at AVashington lost more than 
was thus gained. What I especially admired about your father was 
that he was so purely an American. I hate the word aristocracy, as 
applied to the Transatlantic world, for it is philosophically and practi- 
cally a misnomer and a vulgarism. If an aristocracy can exist with 
us, — that is to say, a privileged class, founded on birth and territorial 
possessions, — then is our whole system a sham and a lie, and the sooner 
Jeff, and his slave-dealing oligarchy take possession of the whole coun- 
try the better. Therefore I certainly shall not make use of the term 
in regard to him, but I shall borrow the expression of our friend Wen- 
dell Holmes, and speak of him as the type and the head of the Brah- 
mins of America. A scholar, a gentleman, descended of scholars and 
gentlemen, a patriot and the son of a patriot, well known to all who 
know America, — an upright magistrate, an eloquent senator, a fear- 
less champion of the Right, a man of the world, a man of letters and 
a sage, with a noble presence from youth onwards, which even in ex- 
treme old age did not lose its majesty, and which gave a living and 
startling contradiction to the great poet's terrible picture of man's 
' seventh age,' — what better type could those of us who are proud of 
America, and who believe in America, possibly imagine ? More than 
all, what I especially honor and admire him for is that he most fully 
believed in America, and most respected his country exactly in the 
midst of this war and because of the war. 

" If there is anything that inspires my inexpressible loathing, my 
infinite contempt, it is the senseless gabble with which the hack-poli- 
ticians cf Europe entertain each other about our ' wicked war,' our 



LETTER FROM MR. MOTLEY. 649 

' miserable war,' our ' causeless war,' our ' hopeless wa.'.* Had there 
been no war, we should indeed have been wicked, miserable, hopeless. 

" I can stand anything but the crocodile regrets which our enemies 
express for the 'fratricidal conflict.' When the commonwealth was 
sliding smoothly down into the infinite abyss, during the last forty 
years, we were the ' Great Republic' Now that we are struggling 
upwards and onwards, into the daylight, through sacrifices of blood 
and treasure, and with an almost superhuman energy such as the his- 
tory of no country in the whole world can show, we are the objects 
of compassion, or of contempt, for the little folks looking on from 
across the water, whose souls are not large enough to comprehend a 
portion of the grandeur of this greatest encounter of passions, princi- 
ples, and intellectual powers ever Avaged upon the earth. 

" And in this, our conflict with the Devil, the same little spectators 
think that the Devil has already gained the victory, merely because 
they wish well to him. They call upon us to give it up and worship 
him, that the whole world may be happy together, — especially the 
cotton-brokers. Don't they wish we would V 

" You may suppose, therefore, how I echo the passage in the last 
part of your memoir : — ' Far from being cast down by the disturbance 
of public and private afi'airs consequent upon the civil war, he looked 
upon that war as the most hopeful sign that he had seen during his 
long life of the future of his country. He used to say, after the war 
had begun, that he now believed that we were going to be a great na- 
tion, of which he never felt sure before.' 

" I think I had better not say any more. You know how much I 
honored and admired your father, and you have yourself given so 
truthful and noble a portraiture of him, that it would be almost an 
impertinence in me to do more than express my sympathy with what 
you have written, and with what you feel. 

" Let me say, however, that your memoir (which I called a sketch 
merely, for want of any other word) strikes me as admirably written. 
I have read it twice, with the deepest interest. Don't you intend to 
enlarge it to a volume, and publish it as such ? Your father set you 
the example in his admirable biography of his father, which you ought 
to follow at once. 

" It will always be a pleasant remembrance to me that I knew so 
well those twin Nestors of England and America, your father and 
Lord Lyndhurst. I saw much of Lord Lyndhurst during the latter 
years of his life, and I had more than once the pleasure of being the 
bearer of friendly greetings and remembrances from the one to the 



550 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

other. Lord Lyndhurst, too, had preserved his intellectual faculties 
undinimed, and I heard him deliver a speech in the House of Lords 
on his eighty-eighth birthday, — a vivid, interesting, logical argu- 
ment, on a constitutional question. In private he was kind, genial, 
playful, — never senile, — to the last. He was deeply interested in 
our aifairs, and had a sincere affection for the land of his birth. He 
too was a handsome old man ; but his physiognomy was disfigured by 
a brown wig, and he had almost entirely lost the use of his legs. 

" The attractive and commanding personal appearance of your 
father is as familiar to me as if he stood before me now. It was so 
remarkable that I can never cease to regret that the statue which was 
ordered from William Story was never completed, — I believe for 
want of funds. I do wish that something could be done now ; and I 
should like to join in any plan. I saw the model in Rome, which was 
admirable. 

" I have been talking on, without saying anything very new. I have 
not expressed deep regret at your father's departure. Lasting sorrow 
for such a euthanasia would be ill-timed. There is always a fear, too, 
that the body ma?/ outlive the mind, — and so calm and peaceful an 
ending before that fear could find a place is m itself a relief Still, I 
know well that these considerations must come later, and the personal 
grief for his passing away must claim its place. 

"I beg you to accept for yourself, and for the other members of 
your family, my sincerest and heartfelt sympathy, and believe me 
ever, my dear Quincy, very faithfully yours, 

"J. L. Motley. 
• " My wife desires her kind remembrances." 

The statue of which Mr. Motley speaks is still in the studio of 
the sculptor. The artist put his heart, as well as his genius, into 
this work, for he loved and revered its subject as the friend of 
his own youth and of his father's prime. Competent judges 
have assured me that it is surpassed by no modern portrait 
statue, if it may not be pronounced absolutely the best of all. 
My father was an eminently handsome man, even down to ex- 
treme old age. His fine set of teeth, which he kept entire till 
his death, doubtless contributed to preserve the majestic propor- 
tions of his countenance. A bust taken of him about 1826 by 
Horatio Greenough might well pass for the head of an Apollo or 
a Jupiter. I have already spoken of the fine bu<t by Crawford 



LIFE m THE PASSING DAY. 551 

in the College Library, which is a most accurate likeness, as well 
as an admirable work of art. Four portraits of him remain. 
The first hy Stuart, taken in 1806, when he was in "the prime 
of manhood where youth ends," in the earlier and highly finished 
style of that master; the second, also by Stuart, taken twenty 
years afterwards, in his later and freer maimer, which has been 
engraved for this work ; the third by Page, in 1842, in his 
robes as President of the University, taken when he was just 
entering upon his green old age ; and the fourth by Wight, 
painted some ten years later, at the request of the class of 1829, 
which is deposited with the collections of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society. 

He was not a fluent speaker in his later years, nor yet a rapid, 
talker, seeming to choose his words and sentences with almost 
too deliberate care ; but what he said at last, in public speech or 
private conversation, was always full of rJ4^ened thought, fitly 
uttered, and richly illustrated from the stores of his reading and 
experience. And yet I have been told by ear-witnesses that his 
speech was swift enough in the fiery conflicts of his Congres- 
sional days. He was, too, always extremely happy in im- 
promptu speeches, ready repartees, epigrammatic toasts, and 
quips of fancy, which made him an incomparable presiding 
officer at public dinners. He was never a laudator temporis acti, 
nor ever affirmed that the former days were better than these. 
Quite otherwise. He was always ready with examples from his 
own memory to prove the exact contrary. He did not live in 
the past, as many old men do. Perhaps one reason of his retain- 
ing his mental vigor so long and so well was owing to the in- 
tenseness with which he lived in the day that was passing over 
his head. Thus he kept at least abreast of his time to the last, 
and saw in the great events of his old age the logical conse- 
quences of those of his prime, which were hastening to a con- 
clusion he had foreseen, and labored to bring to pass, but had not 
hoped to see with his mortal eyes. 

From the first moment of his entering public life, even before 
going to Washington, he had discerned and resisted the power 
fatal to liberty given by the Constitution to slavery. And I 



552 LIFE OF JOSIAH QUINCY. 

think I am safe in saying that no public man saw more clearly, 
and resisted more persistently, the growing predominance of the 
Slave Power than he. Resistance to that Power was indeed the 
inspiration of his whole Congressional life. Whatever specific 
shape the measures might take which he opposed and protested 
against, it was the Slave Power behind them that he attacked. 
And it may not be too much to say, that his voice crying in that 
wilderness prepared the way for the great deliverance, the ad- 
vent of which he lived to see. And when, in the conflict of 
1856, he took down his old sword, and threw himself into the 
ranks of a new generation, it was because it was the same battle 
for freedom, bequeathed to the sons, in which he had led the sires. 
His stainless private life, his sterling public spirit, his perfect 
disinterestedness, free from all by-ends and self-seeking, his la- 
borious fidelity in honorable posts of duty, were acknowledged 
by the men among whom he lived, and rewarded by their grati- 
tude, affection, and reverence. But it is to the part he bore in 
the great revolution which was going forward all his life, and is 
not ended yet, that he will owe — should such be awarded to 
him — a place in the permanent history of his country. 



INDEX. 



Adams, Abigail, 6, 13, 21. 

Adams, Charles F., 6, 9, 546. 

Adams, John, 12 42, 43, 49, 88, 108. 
His election as President, 58. Opin- 
ion on the Veto power, 140 ; on 
causes of the French Revolution, 141. 
Meeting with Mr. Pickering, 264. 
Account of the meeting of Franklin 
and Voltaire, 370. Visits Trumbull's 
picture of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 371. Visited by President 
Monroe,, 372. Member of the Con- 
vention of 1820, 379. Opinion on the 
authorship of Massachusettensis, 380. 
Visited by Lafayette, 406. Their 
parting, 412. Mission to meet Lord 
Howe, 414. His death, 418. Eulogy, 
419. Letters from, on Josiah Quincy, 
Jun., 1775, 12; on Citizen Adet, 54: 
on 4th of July Oration of Mr. Quincv, 
1798, 60; on the Embargo Act, 144, 
161; after the admission of New 
Orleans, 215; on the merit of dif- 
ferent periods, 217 ; on Maritime Pro- 
tection, 248; Introduction to Mr. Jef- 
ferson, 417. 

Adams, John Quincy, 30, 34, 42, 64. 
Elected Senator from Massachusetts, 
63. Letter on the defeat of the Fed- 
eralists, 64. Votes for the Embargo, 
122. Notices of, 123, 125, 134, 140, 
144, 321, 375, 409. His election as 
President, 416. Letter from, 433. 
His interest in the Observatory at 
Cambridge, 470. Last interview 
v/ith Mr. Quincy, 491, 492, 493. 
Tributes to, 494. Memoir of, 502, 
519, 520. 

Adams, Samuel, 12, 415. Anecdote 
of, 416. 

Adams, Thomas Boylston, 30. 

Adet, Citizen, 54. 

Alston, Willis, 117, 118. 

Ames, Fisher, 34, 42. His rank as a 
Federalist writer and orator, 118, 122. 

Archer, Stephenson, 296. 

Armstrong, J., General, 80, 126, 139, 
204, 226, 319, 335. 

Athenaeum, Boston. History^ of, 490, 
600. 



Bacon, Ezekiel, 160, 174. 

Bancroft, George, his aspersions on 
Grahame's History noticed, 477, 479 
632. 

Barron, Captain, of the Chesapeake, 112. 

Bavard, James A., 240. Appointed 
Commissioner, 321. 

Beaumont, M., 395. 

Bethell, Sir Richard, 4. 

Bethell, Slingsby, 4. 

Bethell, the ship, takes a Spanish regis- 
ter ship. 4. 

Berkeley, Vice-Admiral, 112, 195. 

Bidwell", Barnabas, 94, 95. 

Bingham, William, 49. 

Bleecker, Harmanus, 300, 304, 305, 
341. Mission to Holland, 306. 

Bonaparte, Joseph, 111. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 73, 83, 85, 89, 203. 
Continental System, 109. Berlin and 
Milan Decrees, 126, 226. Bayonne 
Decree, 139. Revocation of his De- 
crees, 277. His fall, 358. 

Bond, William C, 471. 

Boston, City of. First election of Mayor, 
393. Mayoralty of Mr. Quincy, 394- 
428. Visit of Lafayette to, 401 - 407. 
Centennial celebration of, 444. His- 
tory of, 490, 501. 

Bostoii* Town of. Grant of land by, 1. 
Siege of, 13, 20. Description of, in 
1772, 18. In 1797, 36. The head- 
quarters of free inquiry, 39. Elec- 
tion of members of Congress in, 60, 
62, 63. Last town meeting, 393. 
History of, 501. 

Bowditch, Nathaniel, 430, 431, 471. 

Bowdoin, James, Governor, 11, 14. 

Breck, Samuel, 49. 

Breckenridge, John, 90. 

Briggs, George N.,432, 483. 

British Admiralty Courts, decisions of, 
86. 

British fleet, the, 13, 15, 16. 

British government. Policy relative 
to St. Domingo, 80. 

British Orders in Council, 130, 138, 140. 
Repeal of, 323. 

Broome, James M., 105. Letter from, 
494. 



554 



INDEX. 



Buchanan, James, 518. 
Buckingham, J. T., 390, 478. 
Burlingame, Anson, 617, 518. 
Burr, Aaron, 28, 49, 78. His duel, 80, 
81, 169. 

Cabot, George, 42, 45. 358. 

Cadwallader, Frances, 132, 195, 

Cairnes, J. E., letter from, 540. 

Calhoun, J. C, 238, 256, 258, 259, 332. 
He obtains the Tariff of 1816, 362. 

Campbell, George W., his duel with 
Gardenier, 134, 156, 168, 173, 174, 
178. 

Canning, George, 139, 169, 184, 195. 

Champagnv, M., Due de Cadore, 126, 
127, 226,"230, 231, 232. 

Champion, Epaphroditus, 187. 

Channing, William Ellery, 258, 532. 

Chesapeake, Frigate, 112, 113. 

Cheverus, Bishop, 419. Letters from, 
420, 436. 

Cheves, Langdon, 239. 

Chickatabut, Sachem, 1. 

Chipman, Ward, 380. 

Chittenden, Martin, 187. 

Choate, Kufus, 515. 

Church, Old South, 2, 38, 60. 

Clay, Henry Elected Speaker, 237. 
Notice of, 255, 259. His attack on 
Mr. Quincy, 296, 299, 300. His visit 
to Boston and Cambridge, 301. Men- 
tioned, 332, 359. Signs the Treaty 
of Peace, 359. 

Cleaveland, Parker, letter from, 225. 

Clinton, George, 137, 189. 

Clinton, De Witt, 240. 

Cobden, Richard, 530. 

Coddington, William, Governor, 1. 

Coffin, General, his account of the at- 
tack of the British on Bunker Hill, 
372. 

Constitution, Federal, 38, 40, 42, 65, 83. 

Cornwallis, Lord, anecdote of, 111. 

Crafts, William, 188. Letter from, 191. 

Craig, Sir James, 251. 

Craigie, Andrew, 45. 

Cranch, William, 82, 105, 204. 

Crawford, Thomas, 483, 550. 

Crowninshield, Jacob, 117,118,119,121. 



Daggett, David, 74, 75. 

Dallas, Alexander J., 53. 

Dana, Sanuiel W., 105, 115, 123, 135, 
187, 236, 459. 

Dane, Nathan, 442, 443. 

Davenport, John, 105, 178. 

Davis, .John, 430. 

Davis, Jefferson, 214. 

Dearborn, Henry, General, 182. Nom- 
inated Collector of Bustoo, 183. 



Decatur, Commodore, 262. 

Dennie, Joseph, Editor of the Portfolio, 

30, 31, 33. 
Desaussure, Henry W., 188. Letter 

from, 189. 
Desaussure, William Ford, 188. 
D'Estaing, Count, 27. 
Dexter, Aaron, 70. 
Dexter, Samuel, 42, 352, 353. 
Dickinson, John, 382. 
Dowse, Edward, 46, 56, 383. His views 

on the Missouri Question, 386. 
Drayton. John, 189. 
Duane, William, 53. 



Early, Peter, 102, 103, 104. 

Ely, William, 137. 

Embargo Act, 120, 121, 122,130. Effects 
of, 138, 140. 

Emott, James, 187. 241, 304. 

Eppes, John W., 135, 167, 173, 174,364. 
Letter from, 171. 

Erskine, David Jlontague, British Min- 
ister, 132, 195, 196, 199. His arrange- 
ment rejected, 203. 

Eustis, WUliam, 60, 62, 63, 402. 

Everett, Edward. His welcome to La- 
fayette, 405. Notices of, 432, 438, 480. 



Federal and Democratic Parties, ori- 
gin of, 41. 

Federal Party, causes of its loss of 
power, 61. Its minority in Con- 
gress, 83. 

Fish, Nicholas, 75, 76, 81. 

Foster, Sir Augustus J., 455. Letter 
from, 456. Replv of Mr. Quincy, 458. 
Letters from, 460, 462. 

Francis, Ebenezer, 430, 431. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 6, 7, 11, 14. His 
mission to I^ord Howe, 414. 

Fremont, J. C, 510, 515, 517, 518. 

French, Jonathan, 26. 

French Directory, 58, 61, 84. 

French Revolution, 40. Its effects on 
American politics, 83, 84, 85. Of 
1830, letter to Lafayette on, 448. Of 
1848, opinion of, 494. 



Gage, Thomas, General, 14, 20. 

Gallatin, Albert, 53. His treatment of 
Erskine, 132, 196. His scheme to 
obtain ten millions from the mer- 
chants, 276, 277. His appointment 
as Commissioner, 321. 

Gardenier, Barent, 134, 161, 172, 179. 
His duel with Campbell, 135. 

Gaston, William, 322. --: 

Gates, Horatio, 415. 



INDEX. 



655 



Gerry, Elbridgo Envoy to France, 59. 
Governor, 204, 347. 

Giles, William B., 143, 144, 198. 

Glass, first manufacture of, in America, 
7. 

Goddard, Calvin, 74, 75. 

Gold, Thomas R.. 240. 

Goldsboroucjh, Charles \V., 187. 

Goodrich, Chauncey, 123, 137, 236. 

Gore, Christopher. Letter from, 249. 
His legacy to Harvard College, 469. 

Gracie, Archibald, 76, 81. 

Grahame, .James, historian of the Unit- 
ed States. Letter from, 474. Me- 
moir of, 477. 

Gray, Francis C, 380, 430. 

Greene, Benjamin D., 450, 458, 461, 
532. 

Greene, Margaret M. Q. Her descrip- 
tion of a visit to La Grange, 450, 
461. 

Greenough, Horatio, 550. 

Grenville, George, 141. 

Grenville, Lord, 109, 110. 

Gridley, Jeremiah, Attorney-General, 
8. 

Griswold, Roger, 74, 75, 327. 

Grosvenor, Thomas P., 322. 

Grundv, Felix, 296, 302, 332. Anecdote 
of, 303. 

Guild, Elizabeth, 45, 127. 



Hamilton, Alexander. His char- 
acter of Aaron Burr, 48. Notices of, 
61, 78, 88. His duel, 80, 81, 169. 

Hancock, John, 4. Anecdote of, 38. 
Notices of, 404, 416, 473, 476. 

Hanson, Alexander Contee, 271. 

Hartford Convention, 163, 357, 358. 

Harvard University, Presidency of 
Mr. Quincy, 429-484. Centennial 
Celebration of, 467. History of, 473, 
474. 

Hawley, Joseph, 162, 382. 

Henry, John, Account of, 250. 

Henry, Patrick, Anecdote of, 162. 

Herschel, Sir J. F. W., Letter from, 
480. 

Hey wood, James, visit of, 501. 

Higginson, Stephen, 42. 

Hillhouse, James, 105, 137, 168, 459. 

Hillsborough, Earl of, 11. 

Hoar, v.. Kockwood, 511. 

Holt, Peter, 28. 

Hollis, Thomas, 7. 

Horsey, Outerbridge, 241. 

Hosack, Alexander, 75, 81, 82. 

Howe, Lord, mission to, 414. 

Uuger, Francis K. Visit to Quincy, 
407. Account of Lafayette's arrival 
in Carolina, 408. 



Hull, Isaac, capture of the Guerri^re, 

262, 345. 
Hull, .John, Mint Master, 2. 
Humphries, Captain, of the Leopard, 

112. 
Hungerford, John P., 322. 



Ikujo, Spanish Minister, his conduct, 

84. 
Irving, Washington, 235, 236. Letter 

from, 510. 



Jackson, Andrew, 77. Visit to Bos- 
ton and Cambridge, 453. 

Jackson, Charles, 430. 

Jackson, Francis J., British Minister, 
198, 199. An edition of Mr. Quincy's 
Speech printed for his use in Eng- 
land, 203. 

Jackson, John G., 167, 168, 171, 178, 
179. 

Jackson, Jonathan, 141. 

Jackson, Susan, 53. 

Jay's Treaty, 52, 113, 117. 

Jefferson, Thomas. Receives the vote 
of Massachusetts, 63. His majority 
in Congress, 83. Asks recall of the 
Spanish Minister, 84. Recommends 
gunboats, 85, 119. Insidious attacks 
on Federalists, 87. Policy relative 
to Louisiana, 89, 90. Sympathy with 
the French Revolution, 91. Strange 
reception of Jlr. Merry, British Min- . 
ister, 92. Rejection of Monroe's and 
Pinkney'.s Treaty, 110. Orders Brit- 
ish ships to leave the harbors of the 
United States, 113. His Embargo 
Act, 120. Withholds the letter of 
Champagny, 126. Effect of the Em- 
bargo in Virginia, 143. Antipathy 
to a Nav}', 173. Treatment of Gen- 
eral Lincoln, 181. Substitutes Non- 
Intercourse for Embargo, 185. End 
of his Presidencv, 186. Notices of, 
292, 294, 297, 330, 355. 383, 356. 
Letter to, 417. His death, 419. 

Johnson, William, 76. 

Kemper, Maria Sophia, 44. 
Kent, James, Chancellor, 76, 305. Let- 
ter from, 473- 
King, Rufus, 78, 81, 348. 
Kirkland, .J. T., 28, 429, 430, 449, 480. 



Lafayette, General. His invitation 
to Boston, 401. His visits, 402 - 407, 
412. Letters from, bv Colonel Huger, 
107; by Count Vidua, 409; 423, 424, 



656 



INDEX. 



425, 435; to, on the Revolution of 
1830, 400. Description of Lagrange, 
450. Letter to G. VV. Lafayette, 
452. 

Lawrence, Captain, 324, 345. 

Lee, Henry, General, 271. 

Lee, Richard Henry, 382. 

Leonard, Daniel, 380. 

Lewis, Morgan, 414. His views of the 
capture of General Lee, 415. 

Lewis, Jacob, 76, 80. 

Lewis, Joseph, 143, 144, 178. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 53, 416. His nomi- 
nation, 523, 524. He sends his por- 
trait to Jlr. Quincy, on the 1st of 
Januarv, 1863, 533. Letter to, 538. 
His reply, 539. 

Lincoln, Benjamin, General, 181. 

Lincoln, Levi, Governor, 432. 

Lingan, General, 271. 

Livingston, Robert LeRoy, 240. 

Llovd, James, 142, 160, 165, 168, 181, 
182, 192, 194, 272, 322, 412. 

Louisiana, Purchase of. 84, 86. 

Lowell, John, 42, 141, 215, 241, 265, 
348, 349. 

Lowndes, William, 239. 

Lyndhurst, Lord, 521. Letters from, 
522, 549. 

Lyon, Matthew, 327. Letter from, 
328. 



Macon, Nathaniel, elected Speaker, 94, 
99, 150, 151, 163, 173, 219, 223. 

Madison, James. Notices of, 28, 60, 74, 
75, 84, 92, 110, 111, 132, 137. Chosen 
President, 173. Inauguration, 186, 
189. First Message, 193. Conduct 
toward Mr. Erskine, 196, 204. His 
policy hostile to England but op- 
posed to war, 237. Pays John Henry 
$ 50,000 for his papers, 253. His Eni- 
bargo of sixty days, 256. Declara- 
tion of war with England, 259. 

Madison, Mrs., 193, 204. 

Marshall, John, Envov to France, 59, 
105. Letters from, 204, 443. 

Mercier, Count de, anecdote of, 141. 

Merry, Anthony, British Minister. Re- 
ception of, 92 Endeavers to nego- 
tiate a treaty, 110, 111. 

Mifflin, Thomas, 415. 

Mills, Elijah H., 389. 

Milnor, James, 187, 236, 273. 

IMinot, George Richards, 106. 

Missouri Question, debates on, 383, 
387, 388. 

Monroe, James. Treatv negotiated bv, 
110, 113. Intention "of the Cabinet 
to appoint him Lieutenant-General, 



282. Notices of, 137, 292, 335, 372 

387. 
Moore, Thomas, 32. 
Morris, Gouverneur, 240. Letters from, 

317, 326. 
Morris, Robert, 49. 
Morton, Eliza Susan. Visits Boston, 

43. Engagement to Josiah Quincy, 

46. 
Morton, Jacob, 76, 77, SO. 
Morton, John, 43. 
Morton, .Maria Sophia, 44, 48, 484. 
Morton, Washington, 76, 77, 81. 
Motley, J. Lothrop, Letters from, vl9. 

547. 



New York City, appropriation for 

its defence, 97. 
Niederstetter, Baron von, 410. 
Nicholas, Wilson C.,90, 167, 168, 171. 
Noailles, Viscount de, 141. 



Oakley, Thomas J., 322, 

Observatory, Astronomical, established 
at Cambridge, 470. Bequests and 
donations to, 471, 472. 

Ogden, David B., 78, 317. 

Otis, Harrison Gray, 42, 115. Letter 
from, 164 Remarks on Mr. Quincv's 
speech, 214. Notices of, 241, 248, 322, 
349, 366. Letters from, 376. Candi- 
date as first Mayor of Boston, 393. 
Elected Mayor, 427. 

Otis, James, 13. 



Packard, Asa, 56, 234. 

Palmer, Joseph, 7. 

Parker, Isaac, 34, 42, 379. 

Parsons, Theophilus, 34, 42, 68, 141, 241. 

Peace of 181,5, 361. 

Pearson, Eliphalet, 24,28. 

Peter, John, 131, 132,204. 

Peter, Martha, her gift of Washing- 
ton's gorget, 309. 

Peters, Richard, letter from, 367. 

Pemberton, Ebenezer, 28. 

Pendleton, Nathaniel, 76, 81, 82. 

Phillips Academy, Andover, 23. 

Phillips, Edward Bromfield. his be- 
quest, 472. 

Phillips, .John, 57,375. First Mavor of 
Boston, 394. 

Phillips, William, 20, 21,23. 

Phillips, William, Lieutenant-Governor, 
67,384,416. 

Pickering, Timothy, 9, 105. His btter 
to Governor Sullivan, 124, 192, 205. 
His meeting with Mr. Adams, 264. 



INDEX. 



557 



Notices of, 303, S04. Letters from, 

318,321. 
Pickman, Benjamin, 105, 187, 194. 
Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, Envoy 

to France, 59. 
Pinckney, 'I'homas, 108. 
Pinkney", William. Treaty negotiated 

bv, 110,113, 139, 184,256. 
Pitkin, Timothy, 74, 75, 105, 135, 187, 

236, 457, 459. 
Plumer, William, 353. 
Poindexter, George, 207, 211, 212. 
Porter, Eliphalet, 429. 
Potter, Elisha R., 187, 300. Letter from, 

319, 429. 
Priestley, Joseph, 68, 70. 
Pratt, Benjamin, 8. 



QuiNCY, Abigail, wife of Josiah 
Quincy, Junior, 13, 19, 21, 27, 34, 
35, 55, 57, 487. 

Quincy, Ann, 27, 56. 

Quincy, Edmund, first of the name in 
New England, 1. 

Quincy, Edmund, one of the Commit- 
tee of Safety, 1689, 2. 

Quincy, Edmund, Judge, agent of Mas- 
sachusetts in London. 3. 

Quinc}-, Edmund, notice of, by Dr. 
Franklin, 7. 

Quincy, Eliza Susan, wife of .losiah 
Quincv, 56. Winters in Washington, 
82, 105, 106, 198, 204. Letters to, 
123, 125, 131, 134, 136, 160, 174, 181, 
185, 212. Notices of, 344, 347, 360, 
371, 404, 408, 418, 437. Tribute to, 
499. Memoir of, 36, 262, 407, 411. 

Quincy, Eliza Susan, daughter of Jo- 
siah Quincy, 262, 407, 4il. 

Quincy, Hannah, 5, 6, 9, 45. 

Quincv, John, Speaker of the House, 
&c.,'3. 

Quincy, .Josiah, of Braintree, Account 
of, 4. Commissioner to Pennsyl- 
vania, 5. Acquaintance with Dr. 
Franklin, 6. Visit from Dr. Frank- 
lin, 13. Correspondence with Gen- 
eral Washington, 14, 15. His death, 
27, 127. 

Quincy, Josiah, Junior. His rank at 
the bar, 9. Defence of Captain Pres- 
ton, 1770, 10. His visit to England, 
11. His death, 1775, 12, 19. Books be- 
queathed to his son, 29. Memoir, 411. 

Quincv, Josiah. Ancestry, 1-17. Birth, 
18. "Childhood, 19 -22'. Education at 
Phillips Academy, 23. Enters Har- 
vard College, 28. Graduates, 29. 
His classmates, 3U. Study and prac- 
tice of law, 34. Early Federalism, 



42. Acquaintance with Miss Mor- 
ton. 43. Engagement, 46. Journey 
to New York, 47. Conversation with 
General Hamilton, 48. Visit to Phil- 
adelphia, 49. Recollections of Gen- 
eral Washington, 50, 51. Intended 
tour in Europe, 52. Marriage, 56. 
Death of his mother, 67. Oration, 
4th of July, 1798, 59. Candidate for 
Congress, 60. Elected to the State 
Senate, 63; to Congress, ib. At- 
tacks the slave ratio of representa- 
tion, 65. Preparation for Congress, 
67. Journey to Washington. 72. 
Takes his seat, 83 Opinion of Mr. 
Jefferson, 87; of the purchase of 
Louisiana, 90. Acquaintance with 
John Randolph, 94. Opinion of, 304. 
Speech on fortifying the harbors, 97; 
on abolition of the slave trade, 103. 
Conversation with Mr. Merry, 110. 
Practically leader of the Federal 
party in the House, 115. Extorts 
Mr. Jefferson's Proclamation, 117. 
Letters from Fisher Ames, 118, 122. 
Embargo Act, 121. Views of the 
course of J. Q. Adams, 122, 125. 
Mr. Erskine and Mr. Rose, 132. 
Barent Gardenier, 134 ; his duel, 
135. Keeps house with Mr. Lloyd, 
142. Letter from Mr. Adams on 
the Embartro, 144. Reply, 146. 
Letter from H. G. Otis, 164. 
Speech on the Volunteer bill, 167. 
Violence of his opponents, 168. His 
reasoning with duellists, 170. Cor- 
respondence with Mr. Eppes, 171. 
Bill for arming the four frigates, 173. 
Speech on an extra Session of Con- 
gress, 174. Virulence of the Dem- 
ocrats, 179. His motion toward an 
impeachment of Mr. Jefferson, 182. 
Debate on repeal of the Embargo, 
184. His friends in Congress, 187. 
Extra Session, 192. Mission of Fran- 
cis J. Jackson, 198. Speech on his 
dismission, 199; private edition for 
Mr. Jackson's use in England, 203. 
Speech on the admission of Louisi- 
ana, 207; on Place and Patronage, 
219; on Non-Intercourse, 227. Re- 
view of the Life and Works of Fisher 
Ames, 235. Letters from H. >V. 
Desaussure, 189, 190; W. Crafts, 191 ; 
Judge JIarshall, 204, 443 ; John Ad- 
ams, 215, 217; S. Stanhope Smith, 
224; Parker Cleaveland, 225. Speech 
on Maritime Protection, 242. Gen- 
eral approbation of it, 247. The 
John Henry scandal, 250, 253. Opin- 
ion of Henry Clay, 255. Seads 



558 



INDEX. 



news of a sixty days' Embargo to 
Boston, 257. Account of declaration 
of war with England, 259. Reasons 
for declining a re-election, 260. In- 
timacy witli John Randolph, 266. 
Letters from, 268-270. Speech on 
the enlistment of minors, 272; in be- 
half of the merchants, 277; on the 
invasion of Canada, 283 ; in reply to 
the attack of H. Clay, 298, 299; on 
classifying the militia, 302. Har- 
manus Bleecker, 305. Leaves Con- 
gress, 306, 307. Oration before the 
Washington Benevolent Society, 308. 
Election to the State Senate, 322. 
His resolution on the vote of thanks 
to Captain Lawrence, 324. Letters 
from Gouverneur Morris, 317, 326; 
T. Pickerins, 318, 321, 323; .John 
Randolph, 329-342, 347-356, 363, 
385, 421. Captain of the Boston 
Hussars, 346. Farming experiments, 
365. Visit from President Moin-oe, 
372. Opposes the separation of 
Maine, 374. Dropped from tlie State 
Senate, 376. Speech in P'tmeuil 
Hall thereupon, 377. Election to the 
State House of Representatives, 378. 
Member of the Convention of 1820, 
379. Speaker of the House, 389. 
Judge of the Municipal Court, ib. 
Decision on law of libel in the case 
of J. T. Buckingham, 390. Report 
on Pauperism, 391. Moderator at 
the last town meeting held in Bos- 
ton, 393. The first election for 
Mayor, 393. Electeil second Mayor 
of Boston, 394. House of Industry 
and House for Reformation "of Juve- 
nile Oflenders, 395. Police, 896. Fire 
Department, 397. Faneuil Hall Mar- 
ket, 899. Public schools, 400. High 
School for girls, ib. Invitation to 
Lafayette, 401. Receives him as the 
guest of Boston, 402. Letters from 
Lafayette, 407, 409, 423, 424, 435. 
Second visit of Lafayette, 412. De- 
livers the Jubilee Oration, July 4, 
1826, 418. Address on leaving the 
Mayoralty, 427. Elected President 
of Harvard University, 430. In- 
auguration as President, 432. Let- 
ters from Bishop Cheverus, 419, 430; 
Mr. Roscoe, 425 ; Joseph Storv, 433; 
J. Q. Adams, 63,433; Daniel Webster, 
434; Chancellor Kent, 473. Changes 
in College discipline, 437. Address 
at dedication of Dane Hall, 443. Cen- 
tennial address in Boston, 444. His 
letter to Lafavette on the Revolution 
of 1830, 448. Letter from his daughter. 



Mrs. Greene, describing La Grange, 
450. Letter, on the death of Lafay- 
ette, to his son, 452. President Jack- 
son's visit, 453. Correspondence with 
Sir Augustus J. F"oster, 455. College 
disturbances. 464-467. Centennial 
address at Harvard, 467. Gore Hall 
erected, 468. An observatory estab- 
lished, 470. He gives it ten thousand 
dollars, 472. His purchases of land 
for the College, 472. Publishes the 
History of Harvard University, 473. 
Correspondence with James Gra- 
hame, 474. Writes a memoir of 
him, 477. Defends him against Mr. 
Bancroft, ib. Letter from Sir J. F. 
W. Herschel on Grahame's memoir, 
480. Resigns the Presidency, 481. 
Tributes of the government and stu- 
dents, 483. His residence in Boston, 
485. His classical studies and libra- 
rv. 489. History of Boston, 490, 501. 
History of the Athenseum, 490, 500. 
Death of John Quincy Adams, 493. 
Correspondence with J. M. Broome, 
494. Writes " A Plea for Harvard," 
497. Death of his wife, 499. Memoir 
of J. Q. Adams, 502. Purchase of 
City Wharf, 503. Resists the union 
of Boston and Charlestown, 504. In- 
terest in politics, 507. Abhorrence 
of the Fugitive Slave law, 508, 509. 
Address to the Free States, 512. Ef- 
fect of his political writings, 515. 
Letter to Mr. Hoar, 511. Letters 
from W. Irving, 510: Mr. Silliman, 
513; C. Sumner, 514, 515; J. L. 
Motley, 519; Lord Lyndhurst, 522- 
His personal habits, 628. Letters 
to Mr. and Mrs. Waterston, 516; 
Captain S. M. Quincy, 524; F. G. 
Shaw, 537 ; President Lincoln, 
538. Reply, 539. Letter from J. 
E. Cairnes, 540; to C. W. Dabnej', 
542. His interest in the events of the 
war, 544. His death, 545. Tributes 
to his meinory and character, 545. 
Letter to his son, Edmund Quincy, 
from C. F. Adams, 546; from J. L. 
Motley, 547. His statue by Stoiy, 
550. His busts by Greenough and 
Crawford, ib. Portraits by Stuart, 
Page, and Wight, 551. His persist- 
ent resistance through life to the 
Slave Power, 552. 

Quincy, Josiah, Junior, 417, 421, 423, 
494. 

Quincy, Samuel, Solicitor-General, 8, 9. 

Quincy, Samuel Miller, Captain. Let- 
ter to, 524. Mayor of New Orleans, 
&c., 526. 



INDEX. 



659 



Randolph, John. Taunt of, 66. His 
policy hostile to commerce, 76. He 
obtains Champagnv's letter, 126. 
Anecdote of, 133. "Notices of, 143, 
144, 162. Anecdote of, 234. Char- 
acteristics of, 266. Letters to Mr. 
Quincv, 268. Anecdote of, 304. 
Letters from, 829, 343, 385. Notices 
of his speeches on the Missouri ques- 
tion, 387, 388. His last letter to Mr. 
Quincy, 421. Note to Josiah Quincy, 
Junior. 423. 

Randolph, Theodoric Tudor, 267, 337, 
339. His death, 362, 364. 

Reed, William, 241. 

Rhea, John, 208, 296. 

Rodgers, Commodore, 262. 

Roscoe, William, Letter from, 425. 

Rose, George H., British Envoy, 132, 
133. 

Ruggles, Timothy, 382. 

Rutledge, Edward, 414. 

Ryk, Captain, 413. 



St. Aubyn, Edward, 410. 

St. Clair, General, 496. 

Savage, James, 506. 

Saxe Weimar, Duke Bernhard de, 413. 

Schuyler, Cornelia, 78. 

Schuyler, Philip, General, 78, 79. 

Sedgwick, Theodore, 46, 79. 

Sewall, Samuel, Chief Justice, 2. 

Sewall, Jonathan, Attorney-General, 

380, 381. 
Shaw, Robert Gould, Colonel, 536, 537. 
Shaw, Samuel, 383. Memoir of, 488. 
Shaw, William Smith, 370, 371. 
Sieyes, Abb^, 91. 
Silk, culture of, attempt to introduce, 

17. 
Silliman, Benjamin, letter from, 513. 
Slavery, mischiefs of, unsuspected, 42. 

Evils of, predicted, 65, 66, 308. Abo- 
lition of slave trade, 102. 
Sloan, James, 131. 
Smilie, John, 99, 223. 
Smith, John Cotton, 106. 
Smith, Samuel, 143, 144. 
Smith, Samuel Harrison, 118. 
Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 46, 53, 56. 

Letter from, 224._ 
Spain, objects to tKe sale of Louisiaua, 

84. Aggressions of, 85. 
Sparks, Jared, 309, 432. 
Sprague, Seth, 325. 
Stedman, William, 187. 
Storer, Ebenezer, 7, 45. 
Storer, Hannah, 5, 9. 
Story, Joseph. 430. 442, 530. Letter 

from, 433 



Story, William W., statue by, 550. 
Stuart, Gilbert. His portrait of W ash- 

ington, 50 ; of Mr. Quincy, 551. 
Sullivan, George, 240. 
Sullivan, William, 48, 51, 372. 
Sumner, Charles, 510, 511. Letters 

from, 514, 515. His reception in 

Boston, 518. 



Taliaferro, John, 322. 

Tallmadge, Benjamin, 105, 114, 137 
143, 160, 178, 187. 

Tallevrand, 49, 58, 61, 84, 127. 

Tayloe, J.. 131, 132, 204. 

Thacher, Oxenbridge, 8, 9. 

Theatre, the Boston, opened, 40. 

Tocqueville, M. de, his visit to Bos- 
ton, 395. 

Tracv, Uriah, 105, 514. 

Troup, George M., 158, 177, 223. 

Trumbull, John, his painting of the 
Declaration of Independence, 370, 
371. 

Tudor. William, 34. 

Turner, G. W., 496. 



United States, Constitution of, adop- 
tion of, 38, 40. Clause relative to the 
slave ratio of representation, 65. 

Upham, Jabez, 105, 178, 187, 237. 



Vandyke, N., 178, 

Van Rensselaer, William, 178, 187. 

Van Tromp, M., 414. 

Varnum, Joseph B., 116, 133, 237. 

Vaughan, Benjamin, 68, 69. 

Vidua, Count Charles, 409, 410. Notices 

of, 458, 460. 
Vaughan, John, 49. 



Walker, James, Memoir by, 442, 482, 
488. 

Wallenstein, M. de, 414. 

Walsh, Robert, 235, 248, 477. 

Ward, Artemas, 319. Letter from, 320. 

Warren, Joseph, General, 12, 13, 22. 

Washburn, Israel, Governor, 515. 

Washington, Bushrod, Judge, 105, 106, 
193. 

Washington, George. His correspond- 
ence with Josiah Quincy of Brain- 
tree, 14. His receptions as President, 
60. Abuse of, by the Democrats, 53. 
His characteristics in youth, 143. 
His gorget, 309. 

Waterston, Anna L. Q., 516. 

Waterston, Helen R., 631. 



560 



INDEX. 



Waterston, Robert C, 494, 516, 531. | White, Daniel A., letter to, 466. 



Webster, Daniel, 320, 321, 322, 362. 
His Oration on the 17th of June, 
1825, 411. His Eulogy on Adams 
and Jefferson, 419. Letter from, 
434. Notices of, 492, 504, 517. 518, 
535. 

Webster, Noah, 74, 75. 

Wells, Eleazar M. P., 395. 



White, Samuel, 135. 
Whittlesey, Ehsha, 493. 
Widgery, William, 296- 
Williams, David R., 173, 276. 
Wilson, Belford, 414. 
Wolcott, Oliver, 46, 76, 81, 82. 

moir of, 491. 
Wxight, Robert, 223. 



Mo- 



THE END. 



^'^^^27mQ. 



